


On Home Shores

by R_S



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Explicit Description of Scars and Injury, Freedom and Love, M/M, Sharing of Sexual Partners
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-28
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2018-12-08 00:02:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11634714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R_S/pseuds/R_S
Summary: Marco is tasked with keeping an eye on one of their home Territories as two of the Revolutionary's Soldiers are smuggled across its Blue boarders. Ace is brought along, his first mission. He never dreamed what weight of impact on his life... what he'd find there, and come to understand.





	1. Your Name, Pirate!

**Author's Note:**

> Ace is gone in cannon :( But I love the idea that he could have met Sabo, somewhere on the Grand Line before Thatch was murdered, and he took to the seas looking for Blackbeard. I also love wise-Marco, and how perfect Marco is for Ace in every way possible.

 

The room is large, with a wide open floor-space. Elegant fixtures filled with oil extracted from Sea King fat hung above. The lit wicks spittering for impurities in the thick purple-tinged gloop. Tables, chairs, and a wide bar made out of thick Adam planking around the edges of the space. A smooth, polished surface bending outward in a long arch with stools studded into the floor. People are about. Locals. A few children could be heard clearly playing outside.

 

“...First Division Commander Marco, welcome...!”

 

Ace has yet to remove his orange brim-hat, standing beside the taller man. The two carved blue faces on his brim, one smiling and one frowning, tracking side to side above wary grey eyes. Black bangs make a frame of the young man's freckled face.

 

“...our new Second Division Commander, Portgus D Ace...” The Mythical Zoan's put one calloused hand onto his nakama's bare shoulder, digging in pale fingers as if they were talons.

 

The next thing Ace knows, he's been introduced to the whole place. Staff and stand. He and Marco eventually shown to a handsome table near wide windows that looked down over the level below. A busy market district that snaked for miles in every direction. The buildings' concaved rooftops alined in an elegance of mismatched symmetry.

 

 

“Easy, yoi.” Marco is First Division Commander _and_ First Mate in Whitebeard's crew. The man's sickle-blue eyes crinkling at the edges as he's lifting a menu from the table.

Ace can't hide the blush that burns his face. Trailing down his neck. Not in broad daylight. He'd been incredibly embarrassed right before they'd left the ship. Thatch, the man sitting with his legs thrown up over Moby's thick rail. Red pompadour waggling as he teases Ace. Telling the younger Pirate that he'll be stripped of his new title if he messes up his first mission. “What are we doing here?” No matter how much he tries not to think about it, it's worrying a hole right through the back of his skull. His very first mission. An inexplicable need to not shame his Pops, now that he's both accepted and been accepted... but this island? A peaceful little green speck, spitting distance from both the Red Line, and the Calm Belt that is the natural boundary between the East and South Blues. It's a beautiful place, with a Summer climate and white sand beaches. A happy, thriving city rooted right on the bay. The idolity could have come right out of a ten-star resort in the Snail Catalog.

 

 

More laughter startles the new Second Division Commander. A woman giggling with her hands over her face a few tables away. The sound pulls at Ace's attention, and he's glancing over one shoulder.

“ _Keep and eye on things_.” Replies the bored looking blonde. Marco's sandy hair messy at the top of his head, the sides shaved to the skin so that he looks like a pinapple.

“Keep an eye on things?” Ace parrots back, both hands balled up in his carrot colored cargo shorts under the table.

“ 's right, yoi. Seems the Revolution's moving a few of their own through here. Last time that happened, yoi... well, let's just say Dragon won't be making tracks through any of our territories again. Not without first informing us, yoi.”

“What happened?” Ace still hasn't taken off his hat. Hugging one knee to his chest as he's sat on the cushioned bench, peering about.

Marco smirks in response to Ace's discomfort, that pulled-in posture that so exactly matched how he's acted when he'd been brought onto their ship. The only difference between then and now is that then, he'd been spitting fire. “You want to know, yoi?” I'll tel ya...” Elbow thunking down on the table, Marco puts his sharp chin into one palm.

Ace staring back at the older speculatively. Slate-grey eyes narrowed so that his nose is crinkled on his face. So cute, with those rosy-tan cheeks all dusted with brown freckles. Impossible for the Whitebeard First Division Commander to wipe the dopey smile from his face. Getting warmer in his belly, Marco shows off a ridge of white teeth when Ace's finally ripped his hat off his head. Flopping it down on the bench beside him to ruffle his hair. Spitting that they _haven't got all night!_

 

 

“Mhahaha.” Because Marco knows they do have all night. Possibly even three or four... however long it takes, really... Their food orders are taken by a shivering young boy. Running off to the kitchen, and leaving the two notorious Pirates alone again. “Where should I start, yoi...” Marco's put back his blonde head, stretching his legs under the table. Getting a little thrill that the slide of his sandals on Ace's bare leg sends a visible shiver up the younger's tattooed spine. “The Revolution used this way, must be two or three years ago now, yoi. Smuggled half a dozen onto a Marine galleon on its way across the Calm Belt from South Blue....”

 

It had already gotten later, and the sky outside is turning rose-pink overhead. The sea losing all its reflected blue, glittering darkly. Like black mother-pearl. More of the tables around them are beginning to fill up. Groaning for food and drink. A group of men with mustaches take down instruments from behind the bar, where they had been neatly pegged to the wall. Long wooden things with five or nine strings. Tuned by keys on either end, and played with picks or bows. A few simply plucked. As they began to play, the large floor-space filled up with dancers.

 

“Nobody is sure, yoi, even today.... which side started the fray. Who gave up the Revolution's Soldiers.” Ace doesn't blink in the half lit room, listening intently to Marco's low, dear voice speaking. Skirts fluttering right beside them. Hard heels on the floor, though never once does anyone enter into the space the two occupied together. Marco continuing, eyes up into the evening sky. “... when we arrived – not two days later – all six of those Revolutionaries were hung up high. And this whole street, yoi...” The Mythicial Zoan's waved one hand, indicating the cobbled lanes below, and all that existed there. “...More than half the city burned to the ground, yoi. There were... casualties.” Strong pale fingers wrap around the mug in front of Marco, lifting dark ale to the man's lips.

“So the Old Man is expecting the same trouble again? That's why we're here?”

“If that were true, yoi, Pops would've come ashore himself.” Marco's watchfull over the streets. Little bobbing lanterns being carried along. Many – many faces. Most of them he knows, or knows the parents of. How many times he'd been here in this place.

 

 

_I want you to go there, Marco. Keep an eye on things. I do not wish a repeat of what happened only a few short years ago._

 

 

It had not been part of the plan, for Ace also to accompany the First Division Commander onto the island, only Marco had made a request. Infuriated that though he'd been encouraged by his hot headed Logia for some weeks, he'd been cock-blocked by pretty much everyone onboard.

 

 _I will allow it. Show Ace our Summer Cottages. Gurarararara! But..._ And the massive man's leaned forward, pulling at the IV lines his nurses had only that morning secured. Bare chest like a rock quary of stacked scar tissue. He's brought his eyes, like great folds of immovable grey earth onto his First Mate. ... _at any sign of trouble._

Marco is to signal the alarm. Protecting as many as he can until the Moby can make approach. A small fleet of ten additional ships hidden in a blind blue, a position just before the calm belt where all ships vanish from view. Ten minutes is all they need to flood the bay. Stopping any altercation with sheer, unbeatable numbers.

 

 

Ace chews, watching Marco think. Licking his fingers impatiently with his cheeks bulging with lobster and chicken legs. “So, how come-”

_**Splat!** _

_snore~~~~_

“Oya, Ace? Yoi, Ace? Mhhahaha.” Chuckling at his dark haired companion, Marco's leaned forward to push his face out of his mashed potatoes so he doesn't suffocate. Shaking his own blonde head.

 

“Commander Marco.” An older man, the manager of the bar has bent himself, close beside the Mythical Zoan. Speaking politely, even as he's shivering. Sweat beaded up on his forehead. “The Revolutionaries have arrived. Two of them. They are there at the bar. A blonde man in blue, and a woman in a long dress.”

Marco's azure eyes slip discretely over the manager's shoulder, seeing the individuals being indicated. “Your proof, yoi?” He's asked.

“They have been followed from the docks.” the man tells Whitebeard's First Mate, thankful for his loud and rambunctious clientele. Their enthusiasm kept this quiet conversation from carrying. “Disembarking together off an unregistered barge out of South Blue. They are the only strangers on the island.”

 _That's almost proof enough_. Marco grins, clapping the manager's shoulder. Leaving Ace in his roast chicken, the Zoan's up and woven his way towards the bar. Only being detained to dance once, and breifly, before he's sidled up to the polished bar and flagged the tender. Flapping his silky white shirt like he were preening his feathers next to a man with curly blonde hair down to his shoulders. A long cobalt coat hiding most of him. Heavy boots on his feet resting on the foot stand.

Marco waits for his drink, slugging down a hot shot of rum before he's tapped a hand on the blonde man's arm. He turned. That man. Left brow and cheek disfigured. Spread over the entirety of his left eye. Burn scars.

“Can I help you?” He has blue eyes, and both of them appear to work despite the look of that massive long-healed wound.

“I hope so, yoi.” Marco's grinning, glancing back to make sure Ace is still out cold in his food. “Yoi, I wonder if you are from these parts?”

“No.” It's the woman on the man's opposite side, who answers. She's got short reddish-blonde hair under that wide maroon cap. Brass goggles resting on top. Her eyes are hidden by the shadow under a short bill. A tall glass between her fingers that twitch. Marco's grin only widening, knowing he's not been tasked with babysitting weaklings. “We are only passing through.” She's said politely.

 

 

Behind the three of them, the standing crowd is cheering. The floor swimming with fresh flower petals, perfuming the air as they're squashed under rigorously dancing feet.

 

 

“Is that so, yoi.” Marco drinks again, his glass quickly refilled by the man on the other side of the bar.

“You calling us liars?” It's caution lining each word uttered by the pale boy with sea blue eyes. He's the same age as Ace, and wears stuff like Haruta does. Big white frills all down his chest, and on close inspection that coat he's got on is more a dark cape.

“Now why would I do a thing like that, yoi.” Sipping his rum, and uttering sing-son-bird-song in accompaniment to the string band nearby. Marco vastly enjoying winding this guy up. Just so long as he doesn't make a scene, all is well. And there's a lot of actively going on. That's a wedding celebration, the First Mate knows, happening right behind them.

“What do you want?” The woman's demanded. She's much more level headed than her taller companion. Her hand on his arm.

“Do you know whose Territory you've found yourselves, yoi?”

 

Cheers.... “ _Marco_!” The Mythical Zoan's been waiting for those hollers amid open laughter. For the Bride and Groom all draped in wildflower ropes to recognize he was there. A couple kids he saved some years ago. Every local cheering and calling his name, until the First Division Commander consents to kissing the bride on her soft olive cheek, and a short dance for their luck.

 

Coming back over to the bar, the Pirate's smiling under a heavy blush. Slugged down another shot of dark spirits. Both Revolutionaries staring at him.

“You are _Phoenix_ Marco, First Mate in Whitebeard's crew?”

He wants to laugh at the little shit for not noticing sooner, because he's got his Pops' mark tattooed quite clearly right on his chest for anybody and everybody to see. Framed by an open white shirt. He settles for lifting both blonde eyebrows even further up his long face. “I am. And you two, yoi, are _Revolutionaries_.”

It pales the already white boy's face, before he's hardened his brows, and a hand trails close to an interesting choice of weapon. A long metal pipe with a joint on one end.

“Oya-oya.” Marco's set down his glass to be refilled again. “I'm not here to fight with ya, yoi. Don't worry about that.”

“Why are you here?” He's growled out of the back of his throat. The woman's eyes sweeping for doorways and windows.

“I'm just here to _keep and eye on things_. Making sure no more of you wind up dead. It ruins the view, yoi. Dead Revolutionaries tacked up on the beach. Also, we rather like the company here...” Marco's nodded his blonde head for the smiling Tender who refills his cup with a graceful bow. “Be a pity, yoi. Be a shame. If any of these kind people wind up hurt – because of you.”

“We're only passing through.” The woman's said again, teeth marks white on her lips.

“As you say.” Marco's stood up, stretching his arms up over his head. “I'll have your names regardless.”

“Koala.” She's answered at once, lifting gold eyes to level the Pirate. “And this is Sabo.” He bares his teeth at Marco.

“Koala and Sabo.” Bending his pale elbow once again, Marco's licking his lips for the sweet burn of barrel rum. “Be careful passing through.” And he's away from the bar, easily melting into the dancers moving fluidly, like ocean waves.

 

Sabo tries to track the man's blonde hair through that crowd, but can't manage to do so. Losing quickly the First Mate of a Pirate Captain that'd been around since the Great Pirate Era.

 

 

~~`~`~``~~~`~~`~~~``~`~`~~~````~~``~~~``~``~~~`~~`~~~``~

 

 

“You could have at least tried to wake me up.” Ace grouses some few hours later, walking up a cobbled lane in step with Marco. The sun all the way down, leaving the sky over their heads enormous and black. Pecked through by bright white stars.

“And deprive you of your beauty sleep, yoi?” The older's kept his teasing to a minimum, with great effort. Satisfying himself with watching the younger's pert butt waggle back and froth out of the corner of one blue eye. “Anyway, yoi. These two have checked into the hotel, and everyone's an eye on them – weather they know it or not. Yoi, no Marines have been spotted in the bay, or anywhere within a couple hundred miles...”

 

Ace nods his head, even if he can't bring up a smile. All this safety he's felt since that fight with Warlord Jinbe a few months ago on that beach... security so alien it had induced more than a dozen crippling panic attacks. One of which nearly burnt the Moby into the sea. Would have, if Newgate had not backhanded Ace into the choppy blue surf when he did.

 

“Oya~” The stone wall crunches a little, for the force Marco puts behind slamming his palm flat against against it. Arm crossing Ace's path. Blue flames lick between the man's fingers, instantly healing injury that would have left any other human's whole hand and arm broken into splinters of bone from the elbow down. “You shouldn't worry so much, yoi.” Grinning, the Zoan's pinned Ace up against that wall. “You'll get grey hairs early.”

 

Ace could get away from Marco, as neither of them are strictly limited to a simple solid form. But he doesn't consider it. Close enough to feel the warmth coming off the other man's bare chest transferring into him. The younger admiring the mark carved into the Mythical Zoan's chest. The same mark he'd had inked into his own back. His pride, and his pledge, as one of Whitebeard's sons. Ace brought one hand up to touch that tattoo. An inch away when Marco's hot breath reminds him he's about to touch another flesh and blood man. Bringing his grey eyes up instead. “Where are we going now?” They are alone in these backstreets, far from the center of the city. There's not even one other person about.

Marco's licked his lips, throat dried up as he's half stumbled forward. “When Pops draws up protection agreements, he's always considering our return, yoi.” Ace pushes himself off the wall to follow after the First Mate. Their feet puffing up dust as the path changes from cobbles to dry, compacted red earth. “Sometimes we stay in accommodation already built... some hotel or resort, yoi. Here, we arranged for a slice of beach-side property. Built up a bunch of what Pops likes to call our Summer Cottages.”

 

 

It takes almost an hour on a winding trail in the dark. The path breaking off in many places. Marco's feet never stray, however, from the way in which he wanted them to go. The night making noise on the other side of darkness. Ace recognizes many of the sounds he hears, with the exception of a handful of birds, and a low feral growl that he's guessing belongs to some beast in the cat family.

“Just up here, yoi.” Marco hasn't carried a lantern this entire time. If he wants light, he waves his hand and the flicking blue flames of his phoenix half emerge. Just as quickly vanishing when the effort required for their existence is no longer necessary.

Following the older out of the tunnel of dark leaf and fern, Ace's boots sink into pale sand. He can hear the sea. A line of rounded cottages in various sizes sat about, mostly hidden by night. Some backed right up into the trees. Marco makes for one such cottage nearer to a standing rock, perched on top like a nest. Up a ladder, Marco's thrown open a door and climbed inside. A low glitter of blue fire on bird's feathers lighting up just enough for him to see.

Ace follows, standing near the hatch he's closed while Marco's lighting lamps. Noticing, once he's able, the papers stuffed into a huge shelf. Trinkets and letters tacked up all over the walls. Marco's bed just like it was on the Moby – big, piled with fluffy blue blankets. He swallows thickly. “This is your place?”

“That's right, yoi. Pops' is set up under that big cliff...” Flapping his hand to put out the match he'd used. “Josu's over there, and Vista, yoi. Thatch and Isou share that one we passed on the way in, yoi. Nearer to the path.” Talking for talking sake, because Ace is spinning around looking at everything. Getting right up close to read letters. Most of them from residents of this island. Thank you letters, or admirers. Strings of gifted beads hung up everywhere, on everything. The same kind as Marco's wearing, wound up in the six or seven belts holding up his pants. Raising no objection to the older coming around at his back. The arms that are wrapped snug, and pull back against a hard body. “You have one too, yoi. Second Division Commander's quarters...” Marco's heady whisper is spoken into Ace's ear, before he's bitten down into soft trapizious. Leaving stinging red teeth impressions he quietly laves after. Ace's heavy pants stirring up his blood and making him hot. “...unless you'd like to stay here, yoi?”

Grey eyes reflect flickering lamplight. Half lidded, behind long black lashes. “Stay. I'd like to stay.” Sounding just as he did the day Ace had confessed to Marco that he wanted to stay on the Moby.

Marco's experienced fingertips trail along the younger man's hard abdominal wall. Exploring the various dips and valleys, discovering how Ace's breathing changes, if he is touched in such a way. “Is this your first time, yoi?” Fondling the new Commander's chest, Marco lightly caresses both dark nipples. Hard and standing up, blood swollen.

Ace doesn't answer right away, making Marco wonder. The young Pirate had not been very forthcoming about his past. Not many of them were. “Do you want it to be?”

 _What an answer._ Whitebeard's First Mate is in his early fifties, even if he doesn't look a day over twenty-five. The effect of his Devil's Fruit, the Tori Tori no Mi, Model: Pheonix, Marco's not aged a day since he ate it. Not once gained a new scar. Unsure if he ever will, he keeps fighting under the banner of the greatest Pirate he knows. A man like him does not sail the Blue under such freedoms as his to not indulge in pleasures. Buying women, or men. Finding such comforts in what circles they are to be found in. He's not lived this long ignoring the subtle ways to read people, between what they choose to share and what they hold onto with both bleeding hands. “What do you want it to be, yoi?” Marco holds Ace's wrists, keeping him from curling in on himself. Keeping the younger literally open with his chest against his back.

The raven haired Pirate doesn't answer, only bites his lips hard enough to break through his own skin. Hot orange flame hot on his tongue, and the hurt he's caused himself melts away as if it hadn't been. The only remnant of its existence, a trickle of dark red blood down his chin.

They move, gradually. Marco lying Ace down on his back on the blue bedspreads. “Don't you burn my sheets, yoi.” Warns the Zoan. He's not yet forgotten that just last week Ace had burst into fits of giggles with Haruta about some damn thing. By the time the flames were put out, two tables and half a dozen chairs needed replacing. Adolescent Devil's Fruit abilities account for more than half the sunken Pirate Ships on the bottom of the Grand Line, Marco firmly believes.

Ace doesn't take offense to the slight on managing his own body. Too busy wriggling up onto his elbows to watch Marco slide down him. Sucking a thick hickey into his left flank and using deft hands to remove his belt and shorts and boots. Naked and exposed, Ace can't tear his eyes away.

The Mythical Zoan's licking his lips. Tasting the salt and unique tang of the man under him. No one here to bother them, on this quiet night. “Last chance, yoi.” He's said, hooking his arms around Ace's firm upper thighs and dragging back. “Is it your first time?”

He doesn't say, Ace. Only nods his head, looking to one side as he's let his back come down fully into the soft mattress.

With zeal of knowing, Marco grins. Loosening the belts around his trousers, and kicking them off his legs. He's brought himself level with Ace, capturing the Logia's soft warm lips. Letting the younger figure out which-and-what is going on. “Here, yoi.” Directing Ace's hand downward towards their lengths. To gather them, and to stroke gently. Plundering another deep kiss when the younger's mouth comes open to groan out in pleasure.

“M-Marco, w-wait – wait...”

“It's alright, yoi. You're coming, right? Go ahead.”

Marco's husky, hungry voice sinks into Ace's subconscious. Pushes the young Logia almost immediately over the precipice of climax he's only up till now half experience through clumsy masturbation. It's a lot different – a whole lot better – with a partner. Ace gasping, head back on the pillow as white sparklers pop before his eyes. Still trying to catch his breath when he's aware of Marco wiping his stomach with a cloth.

“Yea, yoi. Mhaha. Definitely your fist time.” The First Division Commander's white teeth show in the gap of his grin, tossing the soiled article to the floor to lie down beside Ace. Yawning wide as he's stretched out pale legs.

“...sorry...” Ace has one arm over his face, hiding his eyes. “S-sorry, Marco... I....”

Marco's turned and propped himself on his elbow, getting a hand on the other's wrist to lift the arm away. He finds tears in those grey eyes usually filled with defiance, or lately simple wonder. “The devil are you apologizing for, yoi?”

“I...I...”

“Oya-” Caught by the bird of prey, Ace lets himself fall into the kiss the older's initiated. Letting all his thoughts turn to warm fuzz behind his eyes. Only after Marco is satisfied, does he back away. Arms quietly wrapped warm around Ace's torso. Covering their nude bodies in blankets. “Got nothing on this sea or in this word to feel sorry for, Ace.” An admonishment existing half unheard, for the hush of regret living in spades inside Ace. Marco again curious of where it all comes from. This fear, anxiety...he's only gotten worse since joining their crew, day by day. Only in active battle do Ace's grey eyes sharpen, and his fire is alive. Thrills of high adrenaline to stave off remembering whatever it is he keeps remembering.

 

Ace's drifted off to sleep, while Marco stroked his fingers through dark hair. Putting his head down also, listening to the waves whispering about fish and night dreams. Lapping continuously upon white shoals.

 

 

~~`~`~``~~~`~~`~~~``~`~`~~~````~~``~~~``~``~~~`~~`~~~``~

 

 

The world is small below Marco. Wings of azure and gold holding him up on thin thermals. The tips of his long blue feathers skimming the bottom of the White Sea. His body light, both feet resembling those of a great bird, meter long talons glinting at the ends of built calves. Legs armored in blue ethereal scale. Marco's neck elongates and his gold eyes are matchless in finding their target on the ground. Today there is no target, gazing south towards the Moby Dick. Directly down is the island. Way in the distance he can see a line of five ships. All in tight formation. Squinting at them though hazes of cloud... ships with blue beds, and long dark cannon. Sails lifted and full of wind to make speed across the Blue. Sails painted with deep blue seagull's wings.

 

“Oya, Ace!” Landing on the white sand, Marco's body's altered instantly into that of a normal man. Sandals lipping on the fine white beach.

The Second Division Commander is sitting in the sun cooking sausages over a small fire. Up on his feet when he's seen Marco come hurtling towards the earth. “What is it?”

“Marines.”

 

Back on the path, both men make speed into the city. Lucky that no one is up at the crack of dawn except overzealous fishermen and old women herding geese. They never ask any questions.

 

“Good morning, Commander Marco, Commander Ace. What can I do for you?”

The younger Pirate is gasping, bent over his knees, but Marco isn't winded at all. “The two guests that checked in last night, yoi.” A meaningful look.

“Yes.” The man behind the counter bows his head.

“I'll need their room numbers.”

“Of course.” and he's reached for a register, flipping over huge thick pages. He's lightning fast in writing something down on a slip of paper. Folding it, and handing it over. “Has... something happened?”

Marco's accepted the note, glancing at what's been written. “Marines are on rout to the island.” He tells the hotel manager. Ace a witness to how the man's rosy face loses all its color. Leaving him looking as if he'd been splashed with grey porridge. “They may pass us by, yoi. But if they do not...”

“I see.” And the man's bowed his head once more. An award winning smile on his face as he's brought his eyes back up. “Please take care!”

“And you.” Marco's turned, Ace following up the stairs and down a long clean hallway.

“So what's the plan?” He's asked of the older as they're counting doors.

“Get the Revolutionaries, yoi, and put them up in one of our Cottages away from the city. Pray the Marines don't decide to sweep the island. Yoi, and hope they've not already ordered a Buster Call.”

 

They've come to the room matching the number on Marco's note. The First Mate bringing up his fist to bang loudly. “You think you can lean them back down that path without me? Yoi, I want to let Pops know about all this.”

“Sure I can.” Ace squaring his shoulders, always bolstered by impending threat for battle.

“Without causing a scene, yoi.”

 

The door opens on a woman. Standing there in a long pink dressing gown. “Commander Marco.” She says, looking like she wants to throw the door shut in his face. “It's very early, what do you want?”

“Marines are on their way here, yoi. You and Sabo have to come with us.”

Her gold eyes narrow. “Marines?”

“They are two hours out, Less, yoi, if they have the wind.”

“How do you know?” Koala's challenged, a hand on the doorframe.

“You have to trust that I just do, yoi.”

Ace observes the volley, these two glaring daggers at each other. This woman he's never seen before, either in person or on any wanted poster.

“What's happening?” The door opens a little wider, and a man in a blue nightshirt and long trousers appears. Rubbing one palm into a scarred left cheekbone.

“Marines, yoi. Get your things, we're moving you somewhere more secure.”

Marco speaks clearly, and Koala understands his meaning to be that there will be no discussion. Ducking back into the room to get their bags. Sabo, however, is stood still as a statue. Blue eyes widened. Fixed on Ace.

“S-Sabo?” The new Second Division Commander can't keep his jaw from quivering. Stuttering his words. Tears welling in both eyes, to recognize that pale white skin, and great big rounded chip in the man's front tooth. The shade of his blonde hair... Ten years ago, and both of them are almost twice as big as they had been.

“Do I know you?” Ace is spun, blinking, but Sabo's turned. “Koala...” The door is let swing semi-closed as the two inside gather up their possessions and get dressed.

 

Ace stumbling, before putting his forehead up on the wall beside the door.

“Do you know that man, yoi?” Marco's asked, crossing his arms as he waits.

“Huh? Uh, well... I guess not.” Ace's head hurts. Sabo. _Sabo_? What's he thinking? Sabo is dead, and this guy. He's just some asshole who looks a lot like he used to... with the same name...

“Yoi, Ace, don't do that in here.”

“Huh? Oh!” Using his hat to flap out the flames licking across both shoulder blades, Ace blushes furious. Only saved by the two Revolutionaries coming out into the hallway, all packed and ready to go.

 

 

“You're leaving us with this guy? Who're you?” Sabo's narrowed blue eyes have only become more suspicious. Exposed in the street, and to find the First Division Commander is planning on taking off to pass information.

“I'm Whitebeard's Second Division Commander.” Ace can't look at Revolutionary Sabo. He looks too much like the Sabo he used to know as his brother. The brother he lost at the age of ten, trying to escape the Kingdom of Goa. Shot down, by a Celestial Dragon.

“I'll be back within the hour.” Marco's dismissed the other blonde, pulling Ace aside. “Don't let them out of your sight, yoi.” Whispered to his junior Commander, and the man's gone. Vanished into the thick milling market crowd, of which he'd brought them to the edges of.

 

They make it through the fringes of the city, and onto the red dirt-path that led away from everyone before Sabo's boots stop dead on the track. “Who are you?”

“The demand falls quickly, sound absorbed into thick leafs all pressed about them. Unable to carry on into an echo.

Ace turns around. Slate-grey eyes resolutely on the ground. “I told you -”

“Second Division Commander.” Sabo's interrupted. “What you _name_?”

Ace can't look at him. Not direct into those blue eyes he swears are exactly like back then... He's even carrying an old pipe as a weapon strapped to his back. Sabo did that too, his brother Sabo. They'd run around the forest and fight and catch gators.... “Portgus D Ace.”

“Ace~?...”

Koala looks between them. An ear open for footsteps in the jungle or on the path, but it's as if they're surrounded by thick cotton. Even to hear her companions she had to listen. “Sabo, we have to go.”

“Y-you're...”

“This way.” Ace doesn't what to hear _what_ he is. He knows who he is. Showing his back to the blonde Revolutionary.

“Ace!!” Birds flap in the tree branches, squawking indignantly before they've carried themselves elsewhere to enjoy the morning's continuing sunrise. “Y-you... No. No-no-no-no....” Shaking his head, Sabo's put himself on his knees on the track. Getting red dirt on his dark pants.

“What's wrong? Oi, Sabo?” The girl's knelt beside her companion. Koala's arm around him. Ace left to look on, wide-eyed when...

“Oh God! Y-you... you and... _Luffy_!”

 

Ace is aware of a few things having hit him all at one time. The fact that this man is actually, _really_ the Sabo he grew up with. The first person in the world who reached out to pull Ace from a life of growing violence of self loathing. A time when he understood himself as the son of the Devil. His very life a crime that should be punished by death. Then Marco. A rush of displacement that were the man's azure feathers dissolving as he's landing right beside them on the trail. He's felt the older's firm arms, that he's been pulled against a warm chest. Ace's chin slipping down, and everything gone away.

 

 


	2. Go on, yoi.

“You will stop here!” Pirate Captain Edward Newgate. Few had sailed the many Blues for so long a time. A man who could be King, if he valued such things in life as that. The rumble of his powerful voice trembling even the swells of the sea, churning right down to the dark flood deeps. Breaking white foam from sharp blue tides. “This Island is under MY protection!”

“You will not stand in the way of Justice, Pirate!” The voice that answers over the loud speaker is proud, and clear. Perhaps he knows the real outcome of his orders.

“Guarararara! I do so every day! _Fire_!”

 

 

~~`~`~``~~~`~~`~~~``~`~`~~~````~~``~~~``~``~~~`~~`~~~``~

 

 

Ace wakes up alone in Marco's Cottage. Comfortable in fluffy pillows and blankets, so much that he's almost forgotten everything that had transpired that morning. The memory coming back to him startlingly clear. Like a battering ram to back of his dark head.

“M-Marco!” Fumbling out of bed, Ace is sprawled in a tangle of blankets. Falling flat on his face.

“Yoi, you can't hold still, can you?” The Mythical Zoan is sitting at his writing desk. Pouring over a book in his hands.

“Marco.. Marco!” It takes Ace a few minutes to get untangled, wishing he could just burn through the material. Finally getting to his feet. “Where are they?”

“They, yoi?”

“Those Revolutionaries.”

“Sit down, Ace.”

“Where?!”

 

When Marco's snapped his book closed with a loud bang, Ace continues to stand his ground. The First Division Commander up on sandaled feet. Right in front of him. “First, yoi, you tell me who that man is. Sabo.”

Ace's right hand drifts without his thinking about it. Clutching the tattoo on his left upper arm. His name, but the artist must have miss-spelled it. There's an S after the A, crossed out. And then CE after. “He's... my brother.” Fingers dig into the dark ink in his arm. “Sabo was... he was killed years ago. Trying to... get away.” The fire. The panic. While the nobles of Goa prepared in greeting their idolized Celestial Dragon, anyone who wasn't of them suffered, and would have died. That had been the plan, anyway.

“Well, yoi. He's not dead. Are you sure it's the same guy?”

“Yea.” Ace is sure. When he heard Sabo say Luffy's name. He's sure. “It's him.” Unable to decide if he should ball up his fists, or let his arms hang lifeless at his sides. If he should smile, or cry. Laugh, or lash out. Ace drags his hands through black hair to leave it standing on end. “I don't understand any of this.”

Marco's let Ace fall into his chest. Hugging the young Logia to him, and burying his nose in the younger man's messy black hair.

 

 

~~`~`~``~~~`~~`~~~``~`~`~~~````~~``~~~``~``~~~`~~`~~~``~

 

 

“Your brother?” Koala's pouring steaming water into a stone cup. Adding a few leafs from a pouch she had strapped to her side. “So you remember? Everything that happened to you before the Revolution?”

Sabo's sea-blue eyes stare off to one side. He remembered. Remembered his father's ultimatum for loyalty. Escaping to the outside. Growing up with Ace, and Luffy. Their pledge, and the day his small boat was destroyed by the Saint, Jalmack. A Celestial Dragon... Sabo clutches his blonde head in one hand. His cup untouched in front of him.

 

**whapp**whapp**whapp**

 

Koala's unfolded herself from where she'd been sitting beside the bed. Gone and stepped outside, and Sabo can hear her speaking with Marco. When the door opens again, he turns. Wanting to be left alone as he's still remembering small details of the enormous picture he's suddenly unable to block out of his brain. How many years had he tried to remember? Tried, and failed every time. Now he can't focus on anything but those memories.

 

“Sabo.”

Ace. The blonde's nearly cracked his spine, spinning around to see those familiar grey eyes on a face ten years matured from the one he remembers like it were five minutes ago. “A-Ace.”

A few careful footsteps bring the freckled Pirate into the light beside the bed. Close enough he can kneel and reach to wipe tears from the blonde's swimming face. Bewildered, and wanting to smile. To laugh out loud from the bottom of his heart, excpet... “How are you alive?” It hurts to speak, but once Ace's lips part, he's can't stop what comes out. “”It's been... _ten years._.. you... You've been alive. Luffy, he...”

The time they had lost together, time they will never get back. “I'm sorry.” Is all Sabo can say. Sitting forward to hug both knees up to his chest. “I'm so- so – sorry.”

Time exists somewhere in the world, but not here. This little cottage surrounded by calm sea and soft pale sand. Ace looking at Sabo, because he can't not look at him. Trying to bring his brother's appearance up to the point he remembers so clearly as a ten-year-old-boy. “What is this?” The Logia's said, touching two fingers to a pad of smooth red scar tissue. The wound on Sabo's face that surrounds his left eye and almost half his face.

Blue eyes don't allow themselves to look back into Ace's grey stormy stare. “It's.. From that time.”

 _The explosion_. Ace's heart thuds hard. Trailing fingers up under wavy blond hair to feel the difference in tissue. Between what had grown back thick and knotted, and what had always been. Sabo pulling free of the other's touch. “Is this all of it?” Harder thudding. Ace is sure he'll break apart from the inside.

The blonde grits his teeth. “No.”

“Show it to me.”

“Show it to you? Why?”

“Just...!” Ace's bitten the inside of his cheek, a wash of metally blood on his tongue before orange flame overtakes the area in reapir. “Just show it to me, Sabo.”

 

 

~~`~`~``~~~`~~`~~~``~`~`~~~````~~``~~~``~``~~~`~~`~~~``~

 

 

“He is your Lover, then?” Koala's stood on the beach beside Marco the Pheonix. Both of them with scopes, watching the blue surf in different directions.

“It is possible.” Ace had only started speaking to Marco, other than in curses and empationed threats some weeks ago. “If that seed grows, I'd not complain to tend him a while.”

“Pirates always do as they like.” The woman's pale red hair flutters about her shoulders. A smile on her pink lips. Waring a long green coat over her other clothes. Her arm comes down, and she's looking back across the sand. “I never knew Sabo had brothers.” she's saying. Squinting for the bright sunlight, she brings a hand up to shade her eyes with. “He's always had nightmares, but so many of us do. He was strong, and knew how to fight even if he couldn't remember anything before the day he'd woken up in the infirmary on Dragon's ship.”

“Is that it, yoi.” Marco's internally nodding. It would not be the first instance of amnesia leaving siblings or friends estranged in the world. On these unforgiving Blues.

“He had burns all over him. Head to toe. For a whole week we could hear him screaming as doctors treated the injury and infection.”

“You were a child yourself in the Revolution?”

“I was rescued.” Koala's lifted the scope back up to her eyes. “I was lucky.”

 

 

~~`~`~``~~~`~~`~~~``~`~`~~~````~~``~~~``~``~~~`~~`~~~``~

 

 

Ace sat on the edge of the double bed, Sabo standing under sunlight come down from an overhead window. Fingers trembling as he's loosened his cuffs and frills, buttons. Stripping down completely to bare every place left wrong after the incident that should have, but did not claim his life. Long red and pink marks, deeply inset along his left collar and shoulder. As if fuel had landed there to smolder under the water. A ridge that begins on Sabo's belly, trailing perilously close to the man's inner groin. But ends there, and so there is no damage to his genitals, though Ace sees the red welted skin along one edge of his sack that shouldn't be there.

The heaviest scar tissue is on the blonde's left leg. Engulfing the kneecap, and rounding all the way to the back. Ace's seen similar wounds, though most – if not all of them – left the victim using a cane or other such support. But Sabo does not, standing tall. It's what he stands tall on, makes that tight lump wound up in Ace's throat start to ricochet. Sabo's right foot and ankle unharmed, white smooth skin natural and normal. All five toes exactly where they should be. The left... A mess of slick red tissue, set over what remained of a human foot. Three toes missing from the outside. The damage moving upward, to display a hole in that joint area, up under the bone where pink muscle just barely holds on under thin papery skin the color of fresh blood.

“You've seen enough now, right?” He's reaching for his clothes, but Ace meets Sabo, as he's standing back up. A hand on the garment, he takes it from his brother.

“Turn around.”

“The _fuck_ , Ace! Why?”

 

A small and unnecessary tustle gets the Revolutionary's wrist caught by the more agile Pirate. Ace putting his back up to the other's chest, and slipping the captive palm under his belt and short to lie flat on his upper thigh. Sabo relaxing down, when he's begun to pay attention to what his fingers are resting on. Stopped trying to pull free, now that Ace isn't actively oggling him. “This is from that stupid broken anchor you had strapped up.”

“H-huh?”

“ _On your ship_ , dumbass.”

“On my... ship...” Sabo shakes his head. The small details falling into place like the fringes of a puzzle suddenly made intuitive. The smell of the wood glue, and rough metal nails. How there was a pile of rotten eggs nearby that permeated all of the Grey Terminal downwind of it for a week. How he'd closepinned his nose, and pressed on. Sweating and sticky-filthy, just like everybody else around him. “... you were on my ship?”

Ace lets Sabo's arm go, nodding his head. “Luffy would wait on the dock, and I'd dive down. We'd bring up little piles, everyday. We hung up your mark in the treehouse.”

Luffy. Sabo's heart wells for the images of his littlest brother's swimming face, brought unbidden before his mind's eye. Heart wrenching for the thought of that if he does ever see him again, it will be a lifetime later. “I'm sorry, Ace-”

“I don't want you to be sorry, I want you to turn around.” Shoving at Sabo's shoulder, Ace grabs the other man by both shoulder. Finding immediately what he's looking for. The ridged rip of a pistol shot just under the left blade. An inch from Sabo's spine, which would have killed him. Passing between his heart and left lung, either would have killed him. There's no exit scar on his front, and by the look of that raised line of discolored flesh stacked up, someone had gone in to remove the projectile. More burns. Sabo's right flank left smooth and pink, the spread of the burn wrapping around almost to his bellybutton. “I-is this...” Ace swallows hard, right hand moving to touch his long-lost-brother's old injury. “Is all of this from that time?”

Sabo's skin riles for Ace's touch. For the smooth pads of fingertips warm on him. Warmer than when the doctors touch him. “Yes. I-I think there might be a cut somewhere, but this is... mostly from then.”

Ace isn't sure why he's looking for reassurance. He can see for himself, that all these marks ar the same relative age and texture. “What happened after that, Sabo?” Touching. Ace follows the line of the burn across the blonde's flank, feeling gently along the man's naked lower belly.

“O-oi, what're you...” Blue eyes almost cross, Ace's palm coming to rest under Sabo's navel. Fingertips just shy of getting wound up in blonde curls.

“We always talked about being Pirates. You, me, and Luffy.” Ace's saying quietly into the shell of Sabo's ear. Dragging back on his pale body. “But you've grown up to join the Revolution?”

“Dragon saved me.” He's warm, all the way to the roots of his soul. Ace's hands are warm. They are heated, and it wasn't a natural heat. He'll have to ask the other about it later. Right now Sabo doesn't care. Arching into his freckled brother's embrace. “They treated my wounds, then proposed to find out where my home was... I turned them down.”

Ace grins against Sabo's neck. “That sounds just like you.”

“I couldn't go 'home'.” The Revolutionary places his hand on top of Ace's. Desperate to hold onto the other man's heat and presence and never let it leave. “Everything about the word, it made me sick. I joined up, because they didn't turn me away.”

“Revolution takes kids, do they?” _Why not, right? There are enough kid Pirates._

“I wasn't the only one. Koala, she was already there. Lots more. Kids aren't lucky, even _noble_ ones.” Spat off his tongue like the word vomited up by a Devil.

 

 

~~`~`~``~~~`~~`~~~``~`~`~~~````~~``~~~``~``~~~`~~`~~~``~

 

 

“We'll sleep with out lights lit, yoi. So long as you and Sabo can handle a bit of darkness?”

“It doesn't get that dark here.” Koala's observed, both eyes kept on the horizon. Adjusting her looking glass.

“Splendid.” Marco's grinning under the sun. Stretching his arm and swinging the glass at his side. “That way if the Marines do come, yoi. They'll attack Ace and I first.”

“Will that be alright, the two of you against what could be thousands?”

“Mhahaha, you haven't seen much in the way of battles between Pirates and Marines?”

She shakes her head. “I see more of the wars between dying peoples. Countries willing to do anything. Kill anyone, if they think they or their families might live another day.”

“War on the land, yoi.” Marco's said knowlingly. “So much more savage than whatever may happen out on the Blue.”

“You think so?” Koala's turned with Marco, walking back towards the cottages with their shoes in their hands. “I would think war is war, on sea or on land.”

“On the sea...” Marco watches the treeline. Remembering when Thatch once spread itching powder all over those hip high ferns, and then gone running off to tell the crew he'd hidden a hundred bottles of sour-sake somewhere in the jungle. “... if a war is won, those who live and breathe may carry on, yoi. Towing their mark from shore to shore. If the war is not won, they sink into the Blue. Their stories remembered, maybe, for a time. Eventually forgotten.”

“A tragic truth, but how is it any different than war on the land?”

“A war on land, yoi? The land is marked forever. Stained by blood. That stain never so much as casts a shadow in the Blue. The waters of the sea are more powerful than war. Singing song over the dead, almost in celebration of their passing, yoi. On land... graves only rise. And keep rising.” He stopped near the cottage the First Division Commander told Koala earlier was his. Tossing buckled sandals over nearer one wall. “Only _living_ things belong on dry land, yoi. And only people who keep them that way.”

 

 

~~`~`~``~~~`~~`~~~``~`~`~~~````~~``~~~``~``~~~`~~`~~~``~

 

 

“ _Fire!_ ”

Eleven ships, including their own flagship the Moby Dick. Hurtling cannon balls in the direction of five floundering Marine galleons. At least two were still afloat. Edward Newgate will not let them return to Navy HQ. These soldiers, captains, cooks, and cabin boys... They will sink into the deeps, for the Blue to reclaim their bodies as and example to the three Marine Admirals in their high chairs. To remind them what happens when hostilities are aimed at one of the great Pirate's territories.

 

 

~~`~`~``~~~`~~`~~~``~`~`~~~````~~``~~~``~``~~~`~~`~~~``~

 

 

Sabo had dressed and gone out onto the beach with Ace, meeting with Marco and Koala to determine how best to secret the two Revolutionaries until the day they are to leave the island.

“Our transport will arrive in three days time.”

Marco nods his blonde head. “Large ship, yoi? Will it come into the main bay?”

“No.” Sabo leans forward over the map they've spread out in the sand and sat around. “We are being picked up by a caravel class, or smaller. To meet them on this half of the island.”

Ace quirks his eyes at dark line of the coastline his brother's indicated. “That's a cliff.”

“It is, yoi.”

Koala stares at the little inked numbers of land elevation and connecting trails to the sea. Littered all over in warnings for crumbling rock or sudden dips into a honeycomb of unexplored caves. “It's... where they said to be...”

“Oh, that'll be fun.” Ace chuckles, crossed-legged in the sand. “I hope they're flying in to pick you up.”

“Yoi, don't make jokes like that...” Marco sighs inside. He'd have just that kind of luck someone would fly in, like that bastard Lion. Sword-legged phsycopath almost shattered the Moby to splinters, and would have if Josu hadn't woken up from his nap at just the time he had. “We'll come back to this, yoi. Tonight – Sabo, Koala, you stay in that cottage over there near the treeline. We'll keep our lights on in my place, yoi, so it'll be easy to spot. We get all the fire, and you'll have some warning.”

Ace smirks at his fellow Commander over the map. Liking this plan. Good plan. Righteous plan.

“Did you both have enough time to talk?” Koala's asked Sabo. The blonde's been sitting silently with his chin stuffed into in hand.

“Huh? Y-yea. We did.” He tells her. Blue eyes on Ace as he's huddled up close to Marco. Talking tactics with a great big grin on his freckled face. An arm draped loosely over the older man's hip. Acutely aware of Ace's softened expression.

“Sabo?”

“Huh?” Koala's hand is on his gloved wrist.

“Are you sure you're alright?

“Y-yea? I...” Unable to take his sea-blue eyes from Ace, the girl's tracked his line of sight. A gentle sound in her throat before she's lowered her voice and told him. “ _You guys are together?!_ ”

More birds take flight out of the surrounding jungle behind the beach. Sabo on his feet without his even noticing. Ace staring dumbly at him. Koala sees that Marco's got a grin on his face, lazy-looking blue eyes on his Lover. Her attention drifts between the three men. The map between all of them.

“Is that a problem, yoi?” Marco's slanted expression moved fluidly onto Sabo.

“N-no!” _Yes!_ “I- e-excuse me.”

“Sabo!”

“Don't follow me!” Shot back at Koala before she's made to run after him. The blonde Revolutionary's opened the door of the nearest cottage and disappeared inside.

 

“Mhahahahaaha!!”

“What's funny?” The pale redhead demands of Whitebeard's First Division Commander.

Marco's wiping tears from his cheek. “Hahaha, be-because that! That's Vista's room! Mhahahaha!” Draping one arms around Ace's shoulders, he's put a kiss on the younger's cheek. Still laughing. “He's just walked into sword polish, red roses, scented notepaper, and mhahaha... potpourri balls in red satin sheets! Mhahah!” Even Ace has to giggle now. Knowing their Fifth Division Commander's love of red and anything drenched in rosewater onboard the Moby. It had been an interesting day doing laundry... “Mhaha – ha! He must really be embarrassed, Sabo. To stay in there, yoi.” Shaking his head, Marco's tuft of blonde hair wafts about in the soft breeze coming in off the sea. “That being said. Ace. You can go ahead and have him.”

“Huh? W-what?”

“I won't get mad. Go on.”

Koala's strawberry eyebrows get up under her hat, staring at Marco. “I thought you said you love Ace?”

“I do love Ace.” The First Division Commander's reached back, getting out a few bottles of sake from where he had a clutch set aside to cool in the shaded sand right outside his cottage. Pulling the cork out of one, he's taken a long drink. Throat working. “But did you see the look on his face?” Handing the woman a bottle, he's tipped his head in the direction of Vista's cottage.

“I- I did.”

“He's probably been in love with Ace since they were kids.”

“Whoa!- Whoa!- Whoa!” Ace is up, boots sinking into the sand. “What are you telling me, Marco?”

He looks like a smiling bird. Handing Ace the uncorked bottle of sake without getting up. “I'm saying go and comfort your brother you thought you'd never get to see alive again. You might never again, after he's back on the sea and you are too. _I don't mind_ , yoi.”

Ace's fingers are numb around the neck of the bottle that's been handed to him. Tipping it to his lips and swallowing down. He's halfway through it when he's gasped. Coming up for air and wiping a few drops off his chin with the back of one hand. “A-alright.”

“Oh, wait one minute, yoi.”

Koala and Ace wait, Marco quickly returning to slap a lidded container into the younger Pirate's palm. A wish of good luck, before Ace is staggering. For the booze and fizzing nerves, silk white sand under his feet.

“I confess, I do not understand you, Pheonix Marco.” Koala's spread her skirts out in front of her over glittering opal sand. “If you feel for Ace, why are you sharing him?”

“Eh?” The Mythical Zoan's flumped himself down, back resting against a tall mound. “I am free to do so, am I not?”

“That is _very_ free.”

“Is it?” Lifting his glass from where it'd been laid down beside the map. “A man... or woman...” He's inclined his blonde head to the very beautiful female Revolutionary. “... to find the sort of bond and connection that leads to 'love' is too precious a thing to squabble over, yoi. And to see that this kind of connection is possible for Ace. Presented right in front of him, yoi? Time is so finite, that in this whole lifetime that is left to them they may only spend these next three days of it together?”

“So you give Sabo Ace as a gift. For three days?”

“I will have Ace in my bed tonight.” Marco's corrected the woman, wagging one finger in her direction without looking away from the distant horizon line.

“So you are jealous a little – of someone else taking Ace into their bed.”

“I'm sure I will become very jealous of them, yoi. When I have Ace tell me all about it. Of course, what I decide to do after that is also my freedom.”

“It is.” She's agreed with the Pirate. Letting the soft sea breeze push back her hair. Breathing in deeply of clean, clear, peaceful air. It's strange, sitting here beside the First Mate of Feared Pirate Captain Whitebeard. The man relaxed completely in a reclined position, lazily scanning back and forth across the Blue. Koala lifts her scope as well. At least to remind herself that she is not on vacation. And this place? They are here under a Pirate's protection, trying to make illegal passage. This is not a vacation.

 

The waves splash high on the rocks, sending sparkling spray up into the air to glitter like fresh cut sapphire.

 

 

~~`~`~``~~~`~~`~~~``~`~`~~~````~~``~~~``~``~~~`~~`~~~``~

 

 

Ace can her Koala's soft voice, and Marco's tombre replies to her questions. A hum in the background of his brain. So much more concentration required than normal to walk just a few steps, and work the doorknob into Vista's cottage. “Sabo?” he's immediately overtaken by the rosewater perfume soaked into every cushion, curtain, and carpet. Crimson wallpaper strewn with dried rose petals. Sabo stood inside only a few steps from the entry. Looking around himself, horrified.

“Who the hell lives here?” He's asked Ace, though not able to turn to actually face his brother.

“Swordsman, actually.” The Second Division Commander says proudly. “Name of Vista. In charge of our Fifth Division.”

“He must be a killer bad ass, even if he's got way to many flowers in here.”

He is. Ace knows. Challenged Vista to a duel once, because he's pretty good with a sword. Ace held his own for thirty-six seconds, and only willing to accept that Vista was really trying for fifteen of those. “We can go somewhere else?”

“W-we?”

“You want to do it, right?”

“W-what?” Sabo's able to turn around, turn enough to recoil backwards against the rounded interior wall of the cottage. “What are you doing, Ace?”

The raven haired Pirate admires that Sabo's managed to attain a position where he can easily escape, while also in a stance to strike if he needed to. Putting both his own hands up, Ace fiddles to get his boots off while standing. Thinking about what he wants to say. It's easier to just ask... can he do that?Sucking spectacularly in areas of pretty pillow talk or poetry... “Are you interested in me?”

“Interested...?”

“In my body.”

“In your body...?” Mouth in a big 'O' like some surprised fish, Sabo's completely red from the forehead down. The flush clashing oddly beside the pinker discolorations of the scar on his face.

Ace laughs, negotiating his thick black belt from orange cargo shorts. He's not wearing any underwear, because why should he have to wash another piece of cloth tht's going to get just as full of gunpowder chunks, ashes, and sea salt just as much as everything else? Kicking the only thing he was wearing against the door, the Pirate stands there in nakedness before the blushing blonde Revolutionary.

Sabo's eyes wide, looking at what in comparison to himself was a body hardly exposed to to any injury. Hardly as if he'd been a Pirate one day. The long gash on his uper right thigh easily he largest wound. The only other marks on his person were tattoos. One on his arm, Ace's name including an unnecessary S marked over by a heavy black X.

“I got this for you.” Ace's said, noticing where the other's sea-blue eyes were searching him. Rotating his left shoulder in and around to display the clear detail of those four letters of his name. Text made up of small ships, and ocean waves. The A swept with tigers in tall jungle grass. The E and entirely solid brick of ink dug deep into the muscle.

“It's incredible.” Sabo is forced to admit, getting close to see how fine and delicate was each stroke of the heavy line artist Ace had found to mark him. Skill like that hard to come by, and must have cost of fortune in either beli or favors to secure. “I'm sorry..”

“For what?” Ace smirks, crossing his arms. “ _For still being alive in this world_? I don't want you to ever feel sorry about that, Sabo. Not _ever_. I'll bring Luffy along, and we'll both kick your ass.”

“Luffy?”

“He's here. Somewhere on the Grand Line. Worth sixty, no... a hundred... ah! It keeps changing. Worth a good amount anyway.”

“He's going to be King, that's always what he said.”

“Not before I make Whitebeard the King.”

“And how are you going to do that?”

 

Neither Ace or Sabo had realized they'd pulled their hands together, or that there ceased to be any barrier of space between them. Sabo shivering. “Is this your first time?” In all seriousness, the raven haired Pirate appreciates, viscerally, the care Marco took in asking him the same thing only that previous night.

“With a- a guy...” Hands scrabble on the red-papered wall, for Ace reaching to undo that ridiculous white frill hanging down his front. Cape, jacket, shirt, another shirt?! Close to ripping through the blonde man's undergarments when he's glimpsed bare flesh like light at the end of an unnecessarily long tunnel. “H-have you?” Sabo's breathed out.

“Eh, no.” Ace chuckles.

“No? I thought you – you and Marco-?” Sabo's frozen in place, Ace negotiating the boots off his feet.

“We've not done it yet.” The Logia answers, distractedly piling up bits of the other's uniform on the floor beside the bed.

“So this... Ace?”

“What?” The freckled Pirate's finally finished divesting Sabo, feeling triumphant.

“I... I've never been with any girl.. either... so...”

So it's both of their first time. Ace's filled with a curious delight, bubbling up inside like when he's dissolved his own body into wafts of of red flame. “Don't sweat it. I've gotten plenty of tips... lately.”

“Tips?”

“You joined the Revolution and nobody talks about sex? You should'a been a Pirate like me and Luffy.” Shoving Sabo in his chest so that he's tumbled backwards onto Vista's bed. Red satin moving all over, and a moment before they've both come to the realization that the Fifth Division Commander's bed was a _waterbed_. Ace laughing at Sabo trying to sit upright, only to flop back when the natural settling of the water inside its bag charged its supporting location.

“Quit your laughing at me!”

“Hahaha- I'll stop laughing when it's not funny.” Ace's got what Marco had given him in his hand, and contrary to most of the crew's belief he can read. Scanning through the instructions on the back of the jar of lubricant before he's nodded his head and climbed up onto the bed. Sabo had yet to calm the waves, stirring up the contents inside the bag like a whirlpool. The blonde going stiff as a board, when his brother's suddenly very obviously mature body sidles up beside him. Their respective needs making gentle contact. “Easy.” Ace whispers, getting the bed to stop swimming. Getting Sabo to open his blue eyes, Ace strokes the blonde's face. A palm to the smooth scar tissue marring his left cheek. Imprinting this new, grown up image of the other man onto his memory. All these years never knowing what the other might have looked like, had he lived. Now he knows, because Sabo _didn't die_! And Ace never wants to let himself forget that.

“Your hands are warm.” The Revolutionary's pressed into Ace's arms, because it feels good. It feels very good. “A-are we... really going to do this?”

“Do you want to?”

“Y-yea.”

“Then _y-yea_ ,” Ace's tweaked the blonde's nose. “We're really gonna do this.”

 

 

Careful in keeping their weight distributed in such a way they're supported, Ace manages to gather himself above Sabo. Their hands laced together, palm to palm. The dark haired Pirate pushing them away over their heads. Ensuring nothing gets in the way of his tasting of blood puckered lips. Falling into each other, denouncing the very existence of anything else. An energetic tongue against Sabo's teeth and gums. Lapping at his tongue that he's held back out of the way, uneasy to participate lest he do something wrong.

“Sabo.” Ace's lips glitter for their mingled saliva.

“Y-yea?” He's grown, an aching need pulsing. Sandwiched uncomfortably between his and Ace's legs.

“I'm glad your not dead.” Warm lips undo the Revolutionary, Ace licking down a pale neck speckled by red-smooth splatter burns. Sabo holding onto his brother's lithe shoulders as he's kissed and touched with intent. Closing his eyes for the spin of perfumed rosewater heavy on the air he's trying to drag into protesting lungs.

“A-Ace~!” For the grip of a slicked palm that pets upward, cupping the blonde's tender sack. Ace grins for Sabo's stomach muscles that jerk for the attention he's giving. Poised to watch the flutter of gold eyelashes, and slivers of blue eyes that roll back leaving only clear white behind. Getting harder himself, for every long note that's moaned out of tight lungs making up Ace's name, said over and over between gasps.

 


	3. Efforts of Negation

“We should _blockade_ the island!” Cheers echo around the large oak dining room. Thatch standing just inside swinging kitchen doors, wiping a glass with a clean white rag. “Use _all our fleet in show_!”

“ _Aye_!”

“Idiots.”

“Don't shake, Thatch.” Haruta is sitting crossed-legged right up on top of the countertop beside the chef. Eating neatly formed onigiri off a plate. As the enthusiastic shouts for action in the name of pride and anon drifted between the gaps in the door... the Twelfth Division Commander's sharp blue eyes bared forward. Most of their current fleet consisted of people they haven't known very long. Half of them had never stood a siege alongside Whitebeard. “They won't do anything without Dad's say so.” They'll learn, also. That Edward Newgate is the strongest man on the sea.

 

 

~~`~`~``~~~`~~`~~~``~`~`~~~````~~``~~~``~``~~~`~~`~~~``~

 

 

“Ahn...! A-Ace...!”

Deliberate in his press forward, Ace's buries himself inside Sabo. Their connection pulsing heavy and hard between them. “Oh... _fuck_...” Sinking, slowly. As slow as he can. The Pirate's slicked shaft breaking open tight cords of muscular rings. Widening Sabo's hole to swallow him down. All the way to his roots, and Ace winds warm arms around the Revolutionary's heaving belly. A sigh out of him carrying words into the blonde man's ringing ears. “I'm inside you, Sabo. All of me.” He's earned a wet mewl, muffled by pillows and soft-slick red fabric. “You're so warm... Does it feel good?”

A place somehow removed from common definitions like 'good' and 'bad'. Ripples of apprehension edged in soft, intimate adornments that made him - all at once - indescribably happy. “It's good, Ace.” Listening to his own choked groans into the pillows. “So good, Ace.. A-aha! A-Ace...~” Sabo's back bends like a bow. Fingers grasping at the thick headboard above Vista's bed, knuckles whitening as he' held onto solid dark birchwood. Ace's fingers clamped into his brother's pale shoulders. The Pirate starting to move, sparking sensitive nerve as he drags his considerable girth along tender, and now throbbing insides. Letting Sabo's body hug him tightly. Caress him. He doesn't even have to move to feel he'll accidentally spend himself at any moment.

 

Willing to accept that Sabo will be gone again, before he's had time to blink or even realize he's seen him. Three days only a long time in fairy tales. Ace ruts gently, searching for the fabled male pleasure-spot he's heard so much about. Understanding his brother won't be with him for very long, fingernails leaving hot red lines on pale skin. Petting lightly over thinner pinker patches of warm smoothed-over scar tissue. Ace will even stand and wave, later. A smile on his lips. All because right now, right here, he and Sabo are the same person. Linked and bound, the Pirate turns the other. Coming face to face, where his storm-cloud grey eyes can search across each infinite detail on Sabo's face. Peer into the subtle layers of cobalt and navy and dark azure in his eyes. Their kiss desperate, and arms are wound tightly around their torsos. A pace between them falling quick and erratic as they're breathing hard into each others' mouths.

 

“A-Ace... Ace....”

“Sabo~...”

 

The exclamation of their combined release, two gut punching groans that tear right out of both of them. Ace falling forward to sprawl limp on Sabo's chest, and the blonde closes his eyes.

 

 

~~`~`~``~~~`~~`~~~``~`~`~~~````~~``~~~``~``~~~`~~`~~~``~

 

 

“Twenty-seven.” Koala's said with some firmness, it's her third wrong guess. Marco leering at her, between gulps of cool rice-wine.

The waters of the Grand Line are blue and eternal, carrying on away in front of them with not a blemish to be seen. Long swells dampening, like white foamy kittens that tickle virgin shores. A clear breeze blowing over Marco, getting caught up in green fern and jungle vines. He can hear it whistle between bows, making movement in birds who jump up to ride the gust. Like the tipping of a first domino, starting a succession of movement that's visible across the island. “You'll never guess, yoi.”

“You're not a day over thirty.”

The smile on Marco's face is in danger of dislocating his jaw, when both he and woman pause. A combined two-headed cry that sounded pretty damn painful coming from Vista's cottage. He and Koala are still shaken and quiet, when the door opens and Ace's comes stumbling out of it. He's wearing his orange cargo shorts, with his belt buckled. Dazed. Shaggy black hair getting into his eyes as the Logia's blinking at the sea as if he's never even seen it before. Marco wondering if he's considering throwing himself into it. He doesn't, though. After a few moments taking a deep breath of salted air in, Ace comes and sits down beside Marco. He doesn't _say_ anything, only pulls close to the older's leg. Putting his head down, and closing his eyes.

Koala smiling softly, observing as well as Marco, the dark haired Pirate's eyebrows come apart. His cheeks to lax, and his shoulders sag. For the way this man's lover makes a change to the way his neck is bent, so that the he doesn't wake up stiff. The First Mate of the Whitebeard crew fastidious, as well as being consciously _aware_ of what actions of his will make the most difference in a few hours time. “Thirty-three!” She's guesses.

It's her forth wrong guess.

 

 

Ace slept soundly, there next to Marco. Using the older man as a pillow for over an hour. By that time, Koala had given up guessing – a good decade shy of Marco's true 'age'. Sating herself with watching the horizon, while Whitebeard's First Division Commander sat quietly. Stroking rough pale fingertips though his lover's black hair. The door opening in Vista's cottage again drawing the young woman's attention. Glad to see Sabo walking towards them, blinking for the sunshine. He's careful, as he's neared her. Blue eyes darting across at Marco and Ace on the girl's other side. The older man petting lightly over a bare tanned neck so accessible him. Ace crooning in his sleep, nuzzling against the man's leg.

“Did you have a good nap?” Koala's smirked, patting the sand beside her, except he declines her offer to sit. Unsure if he can or should lower himself down on anything right now. Marco coaxing Ace from sleep, tapping lightly on his face and saying something that doesn't carry.

“Huh, mn...” Ace rubs at his eyes, grey irises finding Marco. Grinning wetly as he's sat up straight and stretched both arms up over his head. Marco in a front row seat to admire the bulbs of hard muscle stacked neatly to make up Ace's middle. Thieving a kiss before he'd cleared his throat.

“Now that we're all awake, yoi.” The Mythical Zoan's spread out their map of the island again on the sand. “Koala and I have considered that going in blind to this supposed rondevu isn't the best of ideas.”

“Alright, so we go and check it out.” Ace stretches his back, audibly cracking thick jointed connections all down his spine.

“There needs to be someone here watching the shore at all times.” Marco's corrected his Second Division Commander. “Yoi, if something happens, the Moby will dock here.”

“Alright.” Ace holds his arm back, blood flowing down to the tips of his fingers.

“I propose we handle this in pairs. Ace, yoi, you stay here with Koala. Sabo, yoi, you'll come with me to the cliff-side of the island.”

The woman at Marco's elbow giggles inexplicably behind one slim hand. Sabo blushing all over his face. Gloved hands stiff inside black leather. However, the young Revolutionary voices no active reserve for the veteran Pirate's suggestion. Finding himself not long after, on the red-dirt trail with leafy green foliage all around. Following after Whitebeard's First Mate. It would be claustrophobic in these darksome jungle passages, he appreciates. Only he's reminded, a tingling nostalgia in the pit of his stomach, of growing up with his brothers.

 

Marco the Pheonix doesn't speak, buckled wicker sandals sure of each turn and twist on the narrow blood-red track. Efforts to quantify the Pirate's reason... counting two left, one right. Left fork, then another right, left, left. Another left....? but there were too many tiny variations.

“How do you not get lost in here?” Sabo's voice small, and hard to hear even to himself. The dense leafs encouraged to grow until it's almost a solid hedge. Offering a natural botanical barrier between them and the jungle.

“I've helped make this trail, yoi.” Josu had joined up that year, the Pheonix remembers. When Pops had brought the Moby Dick home for a long vacation. The big man's surprise at finding he'd spend his time pounding the channel for what became over a hundred and ninety miles of walkway...

“Oh yea? You did a good job. What is this, red salt?”

“Yep, you've seen it before, yoi?”

“Only once.” Sabo admits, his hands in his pockets. “In an evacuation of a whole region made barren by the stuff.”

Marco had seen it. How the red salt mined in the New World could be used to sterilize whole islands. They'd enlisted outside help in their use of it to make these trails, worth every beli they paid, because they would last forever. “Is that what you do for the Revolution, yoi? Relocation?”

“Is this what you do as a Pirate? Cutting paths in the woods?”

 

They both get a good chuckle out of that. Knowing each competed on roads and in arenas neither would have the same passion for if reversed. Marco leading the way up a steep incline. “By the way, yoi. How is your back?”

It brings the Revolutionary's chin up. “It-it's fine...”

“Is it, yoi? You didn't take your comrade's offer to sit beside her earlier.” It's easier, somehow, that Marco doesn't face Sabo, and so he's judgeless to the various shades of red the youth flushes at his words.

“That's because...!” Because he'd scream if he tried to put any pressure on his rear. A mistake he'd made when waking up alone, surrounded by red satin. Ace wasn't anywhere to be found, and he'd sat up to searing pain splashing up his back. Falling forward, and panting for five whole minutes before he'd gotten dressed to go outside. Sabo's grimacing for the memory, and for the small jolts he feels even as they spoke, from simply walking up this uneven track. Knocking headlong into Marco, because he's not paying any attention, and the Zoan's waiting patiently for a slow moving anaconda to finish slithering its substantial body across their path. Head tipped to one side as the animal's thin dark tale disappears under a green shelf.

“Because it hurts, yoi?” Marco had allowed Sabo to lean against him as they stood there on the trail. Labor in the younger's breathing into his shoulder. “I've seen that boy, after all. Ace's a beast... ten inches, yoi. Thick...” He's had to lick his lips, starting forward along the path again. Sabo following.

“Wh-why are you even asking?”

Marco's put his hands up behind his head. At the shaved base of his skull while walking the winding and weaving track effortlessly. The Mythical Zoan confident he could manage its navigation with both eyes closed should he ever have to. “Don't feel special, yoi. I'd ask any man got himself in bed with somebody I knew never did it before and hung like a yagura...”

“You don't seem real bothered by what we did, I... thought you two were together?”

 

Their path tapers and ends halfway up a lush green hill spotted with trees with thick brown roots snaking away across the ground. Trading one shaded canopy for another. “You thought right, yoi. We are together.” Marco's looking left and right, considering the long line of the cliff face.

“If you're together, why did -”

Whitebeard's first mate is already making way forward. Following the edge of a rock line studded with long timbers driven into the ground. A grand structure, once upon a time built along the entire coast. Raised high above the sea. It's gone now, except for these brittle bug-eaten bones. “That contact of yours taking you on to Sabaody, yoi. They give you any other instruction other than _this side of the island_?”

“Not really.” Sabo's put his elbows to the nearest tree. Hard bark under his hands as his lower half aches and burns. All down his legs and back up so that even his skull hurts. “Only that we're to be on that coast at noon that afternoon.”

Marco nods, knowing it couldn't have been that easy. This crumbling rock face jutted out overlooking swirls of dangerous waters. Dangerous for ships, and for swimmers. Low tides expose ridges of an unstable seabed of rounded stone rolling loose just beneath the surf. Capable of bludgeoning a ship and its crew to indeterminable pieces. Washing away all evidence with white rapids that fill the gullies. This ship's captain who's coming for them, they must know of these tides. To dictate such a time when the shoals are well under water. He and Sabo could scout the upper rock shelf, and should. Except this young Revolutionary soldier looks in no condition to walk anywhere. Half hugged onto a nearby tree, Sabo's eyes are closed. Conscious effort in controlling his own careful breathing.

 

“H- _huh_?!” The press of Marco's firm musculature against his back startles Sabo forward, only there's nowhere for him to go. Captured by the older, taller man's arms and legs like a cage.

“Don't struggle, yoi.” Sabo's body stiffens. Heart pounding inside his head, Marco reaching for him. One arm secure across his chest, the other... Unbuckling the young man's pants to caress a pale asscheek.

“What are you -!” Two of the Pirate's fingers brush his entrance, throwing the Revolutionary's sea-blue eyes wide. Surging to get free, only to have Marco's arm tighten down, and his feet root to the earth. Utterly powerless to break that powerful grip.

“I said don't struggle, yoi. It'll hurt more if you do.” One of Marco's long white fingers prods gently before he's wriggled inside, the younger silent but writhing. Knees shivering and threatening to drop him at the base of the tree. A cry let out of Sabo, when an altogether different and unfamiliar sensation takes him over. A wet warmth that's stirred up and encouraged to dribble of out him. Seeping around the man's intruding digit. Providing lubricant enough for a second finger to wriggle up into him. Scissoring before Marco's spread Sabo's abused pink hole. Letting slithers of Ace's thick white semen come slowly out. Dripping into the grass under their feet.

“F-fuc-! W-what are you doing?!” Sabo's legs shiver for Marco's cum soaked fingers working back inside his body.

“Making sure to get all of it.” The Mythical Zoan's holding a solid grip to Sabo's chest. Able to feel lines of hard muscle beneath his clothes. He felt harder than Ace, in density of their touch, though admittedly this man grinding his teeth has every bit of himself tensed. “Relax, yoi.”

“Fuck you! _Relax_?” Sabo's spat against the tree, choking on his own voice.

Marco smirks, rotating his wrist to sweep two fingers along an internal ridge deep and back. A place he's had near flawless luck with, in the locating of a healthy man's...

“ _Ay-aha_!” Sabo bends at the hips, letting out of heavy breath just before Marco's encouraged him to stand back up. Resting the blond Revolutionary's head against his tattooed chest.

“Breathe all the way through this, or you'll pass out, yoi.” Tapping lightly, just inside. Messaging connective muscle and encouraging a gradual spread.

“W-why are you doing this?” He can feel Marco's steady breath on his neck. The man's single restraining arm keeping Sabo fully supported.

“Are you objecting, yoi?” There's nobody about, up on the top of the island where the green grass runs down the slops of a rounded hill. The sea just visible between the gaps in these tree trunks spotting the hills' royal crown.

“N-no...” It's vile and confusing, Sabo admits, admitting to Ace's Lover that he's being made to feel good and willing to go further.

Marco chuckles, chortling like a wood pecker in the back of his throat. “Then there's no problem, yoi.” Spreading the younger man wide, Marco inserts a grouping of three fingers. Flowering him open to admire a soft healthy-pink color of his insides. The young Revolutionary making half held-in exclamations as he shudders. Faintly sobbed, for the turn of the older's knuckles. Tips of dexterous fingers playing an instrument of him.

 

 

~~`~`~``~~~`~~`~~~``~`~`~~~````~~``~~~``~``~~~`~~`~~~``~

 

 

“... or the son of a court Nobleman. None of it. No one had any idea.” Koala's patience of Ace quietly cowed as he sat next to her. Precisely three minutes of punched somber silence, before she's fed up and expounded all she knew of what Sabo told her. Long glass held up to one gold eye as she's watching the distant waves.

In mute acknowledgment Ace had been sitting beside the young woman. Heels in the sand. Nodding his head, as he listened most intently to what she had to say. “So, he just... didn't _remember_ us?” Hands up to his freckled face, Ace rubs into both cheekbones. Getting spots to dance up behind closed eyelids. “Joined up with the Revolution, and grew up without us.”

“You grew up also, without him.”

“Heh.” Ace shakes his head. “Luffy woulda done better with Sabo looking after him instead of me, I'm sure.” Often he's thought so. When his little brother, missing Sabo and wishing Ace were kinder had made just such a childish comment Ace had been unable to settle down. Losing sleep for weeks after. Wondering and wondering endlessly if fate hadn't made some colossal mistake, and there was yet another reason for him to be gone from this world that never even wanted him in it in the first place.

“Luffy is yours and Sabo's other brother? I can just imagine what _he_ might think about all of this.”

Ace chuckles, “He'd have a great big party. Lots'a food, lots'a sake...” Ace can just imagine Luffy laughing like a fool under his straw hat. Tears running down his face, and the three of them hugging. Laughing, and getting snot all over each other. They'd stay up all night, the way Luffy is aught to do things. Passing out at some point, and the next day they'll do exactly the same thing. Day after day, arm in arm. “... He'd not have any regrets.” Ace smiles, flopping his hat down over his eyes.

 

Koala relaxes her shoulders, gazing up at the sky. A softer blue than the sea below, and clearer. Watchful, as Whitebeard's Second Division Commander slumbers under the sun.

 

 

~~`~`~``~~~`~~`~~~``~`~`~~~````~~``~~~``~``~~~`~~`~~~``~

 

 

“Ahaa – ahaa...!”

“Arch your back, yoi, and let your belly hang.” Sabo's compliant for Marco's maneuvering of his body. Lifting his hips, and forcing his back to let go and curve. Arms folded against the trunk of the tree. “That's it, yoi.” Free hand working firm circles into the younger man's white flanks under the fabric of the clothing he's still wearing. Sabo's toes curling for each pass of Marco's practiced touch over the firm mass inside of him, making lights pop in his brain. Marco grinning before initiating a single graceful pull of Sabo's right wrist. Turning both men, and put Marco on top of the other. Sabo's back to the ground. Baring forward, the Mythical Zoan pressing into the soft gland that makes the young Revolutionary's blue eyes cross before clamping tightly shut. “Mhahaha, open up your eyes, yoi. You don't want to miss this.”

 

Unable to disobey, even if that sing-song voice might sound like Marco's teasing. He's not. Massaging Sabo inside, with thumb brought around to press firmly into the sensitive juncture between his entrance and the base of the scrotum. The man's licking his lips, knelt over Sabo. Capturing what he'd uncovered to be an above average contender in the 'holy shit your dick is huge' category. Not as wide as Ace, or as long. But close. Licking up Sabo's base to slurp rich pre-cum that leaked freely from a red swollen slit. Marco brought the Revolutionary up and high in one minute. Shivering to heel and shooting hot into the Mythical Zoan's open throat, and he's swallowed down the musky gush.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!! Comments are welcome!


	4. What is Real

Blue fire, edged with gold shreds of ethereal glimmers embedded in the soft azure. Cool to touch, but so _delicate_. Cobalt feathers shredding into nothing, even as the young man's closed a fist around them. Sabo adrift in this strange sea. A hard quick wind whipping kinked blonde hair as the Revolutionary clutches to the solid mass under him. Two great wings aglow and ablaze, catching the sun to mirror back its radiance. A blinding flutter the length of three men on either side. Flares of pure white light bleeding off every burning feather, before the blonde's become aware of a plunge that drops him and this creature three hundred feet. Prestigious talons on the ends of long blue-scaly toes skimming the ocean, buoyed on swirling up-darfts pushed off from tall swells. The great bird surges, leveling out some thirty feet above the Blue.

“This is the Tori Tori no Mi?” Sabo's asked over the whipping of free sea air in his ears, and they're still gathering speed. A lazy gold eye roves onto him, and he's heard again, and same as before. A wood-pecker-ish chuckle come out of the Mythical Zoan's elongated throat.

“Model: Pheonix.” Marco's said, in a voice that carries unhindered by the rushing of salted wind all around them. Overlaid by doubles of higher or lower pitch. Contradicting to listen to, while at the same time sounding spectral, and very much in song.

 

They've soon put down on the pale beach in front of Marco's cottage. Koala greeting them with a smile on her rosy-bright face. Ace up off the sand where he'd been dozing in the sun.

“... nothing substantial, yoi. No clear trail anywhere, though there are a few places the old country's catacombs breach and break through.” First Division Commander Marco had searched, and rather thoroughly. Leaving Sabo unconscious in the grass a couple of hours to rest after having worked him over.

Koala nodding her pale auburn head. One hand gripped onto her chin. “We will have to wait at the top of the island for our contact to approach, and then make some way down to them...”

 

Ace isn't listening to the female Revolutionary. Grinning dopily while leaning up into Marco's bare chest with a hand on the older's shoulder. Whispering into his ear. Sabo, on the Mythical Zoan's other side, stands much more upright after whatever the Pirate had done for him up on that hill. His lower back no longer seized or tight. He's able to move both legs easily. Those two chuckling and smiling at each other, however, he's definitely _not_ an extraordinary amount patience for. Watching Marco peck thin lips to Ace's sweet freckled cheek... He's excused himself, closing the door to a cottage Koala had directed him to, and _not_ one doused in copious amounts of perfume or strewn with rose petals.

 

 

“He looks to be walking better.” Koala's on her feet in the sand, standing beside Marco and Ace. The Blue whispering of evening. Of night that will come in the blink of an eye, now that the sun's to begin its quiet travel around the other half of the world.

“Almost didn't make it up that hill.” Marco's hand slides gently over Ace's shoulder. Warmly. Pulling a languid sigh from the Logia as he's braced his forehead to the other man's chest. “You really made a mess of him, yoi.” Delighted by flush of heated pink that surfaces behind his young lover's freckles and across both cheeks.

“What do you... _Wait_! Wait-wait-wait...” She's watching the waves. Koala. Her gaze getting lost between deep folds of blue-black surf that roll over and over across the sand. Gold eyes widening, when she's brought them around to the older Pirate's slack face. “ _You_ and Sabo _?_ ”

“He made no objection, yoi.” Marco's conscious of Ace's body being caught in a fantastic shiver. Beginning in his toes and upward. The greys of his eyes become very distant in their staring forward at the tattoo engraved into the First Mate's chest.

Gaping at the both of them for some moments, before she's _looked_ like she's determined to say _something_. Lips coming apart, but Koala's closed her teeth. A few slow breaths before the woman's given a tiny giggle. Leaving these two free Pirates to follow after Sabo. The sun still going down when she's out of sight behind the cottage door.

 

“Are you angry with me, yoi?” The Pheonix is listening to the sea. Paying attention to Ace's heart beating hard and heavy under his fingertips. The sun shining brightly, even as it moves low in a steadily reddening sky. Towards the Blue to kiss its surface, to steadily sink behind the waves.

Ace shakes his head. Nuzzling against Marco's shoulder. “N-no. I-it's... not that... Just...”

The Fist Division commander's glanced down at Ace's face as he's stammering. A belt of strong laughter getting right out of him, for having also seen what his nakama's problem currently was … a pretty sizable tent pushed out in orange cargo shorts.

“It's _not funny_!”

 _Yes it is..._ “Does it turn you on, yoi...?” Asks the older Pirate, facing Ace to peck at the end of his nose. “...thinking about what we did together?”

The Logia's licked his lips. “W-what...?” Hardly able to speak, because his throat is made of dry rice paper. “What _did_ you and he... do...?” Marco moves his hands. A gradual motion from Ace's shoulder, wandering slowly down his left side. Curling pale fingertips into the orange hem of his shorts and pulling them together.

“You want to know what we did? Your two brothers, yoi?” Uttered heavy into the tanned shell of Ace's ear. Scraping blunted fingernails up the younger man's chest that tear into Ace's bronzed skin. Encouraging out fine trickles of blood that drip onto the sheets. Hot flares of orange flame overtaking the stinging lines.

It pushes all the air out of Ace's body, leaving him incredibly -and _painfully_ hard. “M-Mar-co...”

The Zoan's kissed trembling lips, as Ace is gasping. The sun fully settling behind the world. “...you came so _much,_ inside of him, yoi. I know. I opened him up, and saw it all come out.” They're moving, while also groping. Reaching for one another. Getting somehow up the ladder into Marco's cottage, clothing been stripped off and thrown at random. Naked together upon soft blue blankets and pillows. Ace coaxed onto his back with the Mythical Zoan perched above him. “He made such cute noises, yoi, when he came for me so obediently...”

Ace's face reddens even further, deep blotches of crimson that bleed all down his neck. Raven hair messy over a sweating forehead, with both storm- grey eyes overtaken by huge pupils blown black. “Make _me_ come, Marco...”

 

Flickers of brilliant azure materialize along the corded ridges of Marco's shoulders. The whole room aglow with a reflected ethereal blue, draining color from everything else. As Ace reaches for the older man, he holds a smolder of hot red flame cradled in the palms of his hands. Marco reaching back, and when the two of them touch, the flames that exist on the surfaces of their bodies swirl and dance. Never combining, rather the two very different fires come to an acknowledgment of the slumbering power that existed in each of them.

“Lift up your hips, yoi.” Ace is breathless for the sudden warmth hugging around his length. Grabbing two fistfuls of soft sheets for the sensation of Marco's tongue slicking hot against him. Gentle as he's swept wetly up along the thick and throbbing vein that pulsed at Ace's base. Pumping blood painfully into him.

“M-Marco... _ah_!”

“Lie back.” With a hand on Ace's belly, he's made small circles into the younger's weather-tanned skin. Passing the flat of his hand over deep ridges of defined abdominal muscle. Memorizing the solid body wall, as if he were reading a book in brail. “Relax, yoi.”

“Hah-ah... _aah_!”

 

 

~`~``~~~`~~`~~~``~`~`~~~````~~``~~~``~``~~~`~~`~~~``

 

 

More ships are sighted. Two Marine Brigs that ride the horizon line between folds of deep, natural darkness. Izou is on second watch, sat up on the wooden platform near the top of the Moby Dick's foremast. All their sails drawn in, while the anchor rests peacefully caught on the reef below. The dark haired man will be up here a good three hours more. Into the early hours of morning, watching through a long glass at the more _unnatural_ layers of black in the distant surf. Where the Marines skirted them, waiting for dawn.

“Any change in our visitors?” Thatch's auburn pompadour gets up over the lip of the platform. Bearded faced following shortly after, grinning like a fool. He has one arm wound up in the ship's rigging. Heaved himself up, and settling a basket down as he's sat with his back against the mast beside his fellow Commander. Thatch Commander of the Forth Division; Izou, the Sixteenth.

“None.” The slighter man's tugged at one corner of a silky plum kimono for the chill of deep night over the ocean. Painted face never turning. “Still looks like two ships. Unless there's one pulled into the shadow of another...”

Thatch unpacks the food he'd brought up in the basket. “Pops sent three lookouts to the other side of the island. Wanting to be sure we're not being coerced into leaving a blind spot.”

“And Marco?”

Stretching his legs out in front of him, Thatch's chuckled. “Marco will check in tomorrow morning, wont he? You know he never takes his baby Den-den with him, even though he _knows_ damn well how to use it.”

 

Izou's restless. To have both their First _and_ Second Division Commanders on the island, and had no idea there is an active Marine presence close by... The very thought has the okama sour in the pit of his stomach. Like he were getting torn up from the inside. Blood and lipstick on his tongue as he's bitten hard into one lip.

“Give it up, babe.” Thatch's pressed a plate of food into the other man's hands. Forcing his nakama to lower the looking glass. “Marines won't make a move till morning, and I doubt Pops'll want to do anything before he talks to Marco. So relax, and _eat._ Worrying will only make you sick.” Thatch has his own plate cradled in one hand, broad shoulders hunched as he's begun to eat.

The food smelled good. It always smells good. Fish and egg rice speckled with dark spices. Thatch is a chef of the sea, after all. Izou sighs around his first mouthful. Still leery of the Marines. If they would dare make landfall in the night, and in truth Thatch was also. Both silently eyeing the little green island through the darkness. White stars overhead. This was one of their _Homes_ , when Pirates typically never had a place to call home anywhere.

 

The Moby rises and falls on gentle swells, whispering as the crew is rocked gently. Massive white hull creaking, and fluffs of sail flap in the nighttime breeze.

 

 

~`~``~~~`~~`~~~``~`~`~~~````~~``~~~``~``~~~`~~`~~~``

 

 

Ace flounders, arms tangled up in blue blankets. Marco's lips around him, blonde hair tickling just below his navel. The older man moves his tongue as dexterously as his fingers. Rolling the younger's tender swollen sack between pale digits, and biting hard into Ace's hip. Licking at the hot fire brought up when he's broken skin. The impressions of his teeth instantly healing over. He's only slightly heartbroken he can't actually leave a lasting mark.

 

Worming his arms under Ace, Marco pulls the younger to the edge of the bed they shared. Lifted back both knees, and exposed him utterly. “M-Marco...!”

“Relax, yoi.” The Mythical Zoan's dropped to his knees. Ace crying out, when his entrance is wetly laved. Marco's tongue prodding energetically at puckered pink muscle. He's quietly applied pressure, but the muscles don't give way. The dark haired Second Division Commander writhing and moaning. _So he hasn't yet._ The grin spread over Marco's face is predatory, as well as birdlike. “Ace, yoi?” A finger slick with saliva touches gently. “This will be your first time, won't it?”

“Ahaa- _Aah_!” Flame snakes up out of Ace, as if he were boiling over. Tiny flares along his chest. The heat burns Marco, and the scorch he can feel, before his blue Pheonix fire returns him to as he was. Smiling as he's continued. Breaking into his lover's body with one finger.

“You're so tight, yoi.” Ace isn't looking at him. Eyes closed, he's gasping to catch his breath. Marco's single digit sinking inside and rotated slowly. Widening Ace's constricted channel before forcing in a second.

“Ahha! Oh – g- ah... M-Marco~!” Thrown himself forward, Ace take's hold of broad shoulder, smashing their lips together in a kiss that scrapes teeth and tongues. “Marco – ah – ah!”

“Yes, yoi?” Realigning his wrist, the Mythical Zoan's scissoring inside his lover. Brushing the very tips of his fingers against the hard lump of Ace's prostate. Watching Ace's black eyelashes flutter over beautiful slate-grey eyes. His lips slightly parted as he's gasping for air, jaw quivering.

“I wa-- _ahh_ ~ M-Marco... I want you... inside me.”

“The way you were inside of Sabo?” Ace's cheeks are already red, but they flush even further. Nodding his head.

 

Already rock hard, just watching his young lover wanting for him. Marco climbs up to lie beside Ace. Capture that panting mouth to roll their tongues idly together. Gradually they turn so that they are both on their sides, and Marco is behind Ace. A hand on his own length, which wasn't small, though nowhere near Ace's size. The Zoan glad he's not hung with such exaggerated grandeur, sinking himself into the younger's tight hot tunnel. Ace crooning loudly, hugged into the pillows. When Marco's settled himself fully inside, he's breathless. The heat he feels, it's not only the burn of Ace's body. Hot fire scorched him, repairing microscopic tears caused by the First Mate's entry.

 

“Ace, yoi...” Petting down one freckled cheek, Marco kisses soft tan skin at the groove of shoulder and neck. Breathing in the other's musk of sun and sand. “Ace.”

 

Nobody had been entirely sure – when or how – that Marco's frequent visits to talk to their newest brother turned into a quiet yearning for each other. Ace finding himself sitting in the galley gazing at Marco as he ate silently in a corner with his nose in a book, or drank with Izou and Thatch or other members of the First Division. Not that the First Mate would refuse to get up and dance with everyone. Drinking and feasting under bright sunshine on the free open sea. Ace had been pretty damn drunk himself, when he'd been pulled into the spinning circle and come chest to chest with the Mythical Zoan. Their very first kiss was cheered for, and loudly. Whistles, clapping, and encouragement. Their Pops' booms of laughter shaking the very sea, as the old Pirate Captain dashed tears from the corners of his eyes.

 

“Marco – ahn, _ah_! Y-y-yes...!”

The steady slap of wet skin to skin is hardly heard over the guttural heaving of both of their breaths. Marco's forehead glistening with effort. Reaching to lift Ace's knee back, and he's barred forward with increasing zeal. “Keep breathing, yoi.” Winding his arms around the young Logia as swirls of heat gather in Marco's belly. Snapping pale hips, and he know he's hitting just the right places to guide his lover closer and closer to completion.

“O _ha_ ah – _ah_! M-Marco...I- I'm –”

“You're going to come, yoi? That's just fine.” Reaching a hand around to wrap warmly around Ace's leaking cockhead. “Come, yoi. I'll catch you.”

 

Ace's only aware of Marco's voice. The gentle low notes that had come to him every night after he'd been brought onboard Whitebeard's flagship. He'd hated the First Mate for his insistence of simple kindness. How Marco would bring him food, and he would throw it back at him. Thatch would come sometimes, and the two of them would try and talk to Ace. Most of the crew in turn, telling of a similar story. But Marco would _always_ be there, just as the sun was going down. Always. To wish him goodnight, weather he received any reply from Ace or not.

Orgasm rips through him. Ace's belly heaving for hot molten fire traversing every blood vesicle, cauterizing each nerve on the way to shorting out his brain. Only aware of the extended keen that's still coming out of him when he's nearly blind and breathless.

 

It's just like a bird, Marco's self-satisfied chortle. Only a handful of hard thrusts into Ace's convulsing body, to have him spilling himself. Filling the younger with his seed, and loving the way Ace continues to mewl desperately, expressing such responsive pleasure. Ace falling limp onto the pillows, gently gasping. Marco reaching to pull the covers over them.

 

 

~`~``~~~`~~`~~~``~`~`~~~````~~``~~~``~``~~~`~~`~~~``

 

 

Sabo woke up to a beam of gold light falling across his face. Blinking for the sting when he's rolled away. Koala is sleeping in the bed beside him, still fully dressed and on top of the covers. She doesn't notice his carefully getting up, or his slow crawl to the door to step outside onto the stark white beach.

 

His night had been very very long. Sabo pretending to be asleep when Koala had come into the cottage. He didn't want her to ask him about anything. Not about the Cliff-side of the island, about Ace, or Marco. Especially not his vivid and rapidly returned memory. None of it.

 

“Ooi!! There! _There_!”

 

Spun on the spot, having been entirely sure he'd be alone at this early hour. Sabo's blue eyes track away towards the sea. Tumbling waves with white ridges, swirling up on top of the white sand. Pushing sea shells and knots of dark kelp up onto shore. Standing just sky of those waves, Ace has one hand cupped over his lips, shouting excitedly and waving. Looking up, Sabo understand he's talking to Marco. The Mythical Zoan gliding up above the waves, wings spread out with fiery azure feathers burning under the sunrise.

 

“Aye!”

 

Sabo watches, as the Pheonix banks, turning a massive body for a dive that thrusts both long scaly legs into the sea. Coming up with deadly talons clutching two impaled elephant tuna. The Zoan circles once, getting higher up on spinning thermals. Ace laughing as he's met Marco back on the beach, each lifting one of the massive fishes onto their backs to haul them back towards the cottages. It's when they notice Sabo standing there, stock still with his face pale-white. Boots stuck in the sand.

“Good morning, yoi. Did you sleep well?” Marco's asked as they near each other.

The Revolutionary can't look the Mythical Zoan in the face, and so he's staring at his boots instead. Walking at Ace's shoulder. “Y-yes.” He's lied. The First Mate chuckles, lying down each fish on a rock and flicking the knife from his belt. “That's good, yoi. Might be a busy day.” Ace's piled wood into the ring of stones. Both hands flaring to light the dry fuel. He's created a bed of white heat in only a few seconds, lying a grill over it to wait for Marco to finish deboning and gutting the tunas.

“Busy. Why?” Sabo's approached the fireside warily. Sitting down across from the two Pirates.

“Marines came late last night. Keeping pretty far out, yoi, and haven't made a move.”

“Pops thinks they're waiting on your contact. Might try and follow after you've left the island.” Ace claps black ashes from his hands, rocking back to sit crossed-legged next to the fire.

 

The Revolutionary hangs his head, blonde hair fallen over his eyes. That would be a huge problem, Marines on top of them before they've even made it to Sabaody.

“Don't look so down, yoi.” Marco's flung a bit of intestine into the fire where is sizzles and pops. “There are no reports yet of any Marine making landfall on the island. Scouts sent out wide, yoi. We'll know if any of them decides to make a show.” He'd even agreed to take his Transponder Snail this time, when Izou threw it at him as he was about to fly back to shore. The little Den-den sat in the shade just outside Marco's cottage behind them.

 

Thick hunks of red elephant tuna hiss as the Mythical Zoan's placed them above the heat. Fat dripping from inside to puff in the ash. Ace watching little licks of fire still actively moving on the hot logs. “Sabo?”

Jerking from where he'd been steadily curling into a tighter and tighter ball, the blonde Revolutionary's nearly broken his neck. “W-what?”

Ace blinks at his brother, hugging both knees to his chest. “N...nothing, I...” Grey eyes fall back down into the fire. The Logia sucking his tongue. “Never mind.”

It's like they were ten years old again. Younger. Ace's shoulders hunched up, and he's shoved his chin into his knees. He used to sit like that a lot, looking out over the sea. Sabo had met Ace sitting that way. Tears all over his face. The fight that followed, once Ace had understood someone had been standing there _watching him_ , had been the basis of mutual respect. Bloody and bruised. The very first spark of what became their friendship. Sabo had learned fast, perhaps within the first week of knowing Ace, that when the boy sat like that... Looking out over the sea... He was hating himself. Hating his circumstances, his very own existence. “What?!” Suddenly incensed, and incredibly angry, balling both gloved hands into fists.

Marco watches the both of them without a word, turning the fish to cook the other side. Ace resolutely focused forward on shimmers of heat rising from the fire. “I said it's _nothing_ , alright?”

“Screw you, it's _nothing_.” Sabo's a little kid again, shouting at Ace. “Tell me what you're thinking!”

The Logia's scowling into his arms, trying to hide his freckled face with the brim of his orange brim hat. “Damn it, Sabo. Drop it!”

“I won't!”

“It's... I just wanted to make sure you were _real_ , alright?!” Marco thought it might be something like that. Quietly overseeing the cooking of their meal.

Sabo doesn't respond with any more shouting, blue eyes staring at the back of Ace's hat. A few wet drops landing onto his tanned chest before the young Pirate's up and run away. White sand flung up behind him, disappeared behind the jungle treeline. Koala's just exiting the cottage to see Whitebeard's Second Division Commander flash passed.

“Did something happen?” She's asked of Marco, finding he and Sabo both sitting together in silence. The Mythical Zoan turning sizzling meat over a fire.

“It's nothing, yoi.” He doesn't raise his eyes from his task. “Don't trouble yourself over it.” The Pirate's piled a stack of grilled fish onto a plate, offering her some.

 

Sabo doesn't accept anything to eat, only gets to his feet on shaking legs. Without saying anything he's walked towards the trail that led away under the green jungle canopy, disappearing under vine laced trees as he's followed after Ace.

 

 

~`~``~~~`~~`~~~``~`~`~~~````~~``~~~``~``~~~`~~`~~~``

 

“Guarararara.” Edward Newgate's quietly laughing to himself. Standing on the prow of his own ship. In the distance, the Marines had begun an approach. They're heading towards the main bay of the island. “Guararara.”  
“They think they can walk right into town, do they?” Haruta's one hand in the rigging, stood up on The Moby Dick's white railing. Free hand shading dark eyes from the early sunshine.

“Pretty dumb.” Thatch has his back to the sea, leaning one hip against the side. Izou next to him, a scowl on painted red lips.

Whitebeard's turned huge shoulders. Lance meeting the deck with a heavy clang. “Have our scouts reported back?”

“They have.” Thatch flicks the butt of his spent cigarette over the side. “Came up with nothing. They're making a wide loop around to rejoin our fleet by nightfall.”

 

Two Marine Brigs. Each capable to carrying a couple thousand armed soldiers. The Pirate Captain doesn't want to see the devastation they could potentially cause, not after what happened the last time. “Rise anchor!” Booms the powerful voice of the strongest man in the world. Hard footfalls bringing him to the massive thrown set up under the sun on deck. Setting down, with his head held high. “Bring us to the island!”

 

 

~`~``~~~`~~`~~~``~`~`~~~````~~``~~~``~``~~~`~~`~~~``

 

 

“Ace?! Oi, _Ace_?!” He had hoped to find his brother quickly, before becoming too befuddled on the winding red track. Hopes and realities are often dissimilar. “ _Ace_?!”

 

Sabo's boots crunch on the red dirt track. Green fern and leafs swallowing up the sound of his voice so that shouting does close to nothing. He's too far from the trail outlet to see the beach, and taken so many turns and forks he's not sure how to even get back. Finding his feet on a bare patch of brown earth, a ring of trees all around with dark trunks towering up overhead to form a thick emerald roof. Ace's standing there, near one of those trees. His back to Sabo, either acting like, or hasn't seen him. As the Revolutionary walks quietly towards the other, he's aware of tiny pricks of white fire that dot the air around the Pirate. Ace's back rising and falling as he's taking deep –deep breaths in and out. The specks darting all around him like fireflies.

 

“Ace.” The little dots erupt, crackling in the air around their creator as Whitebeard's Second Division Commander pivots on the spot, right arm overtaken by red hot flame. There are tears streaked down Ace's face, which he rounds onto Sabo. A moment of wide, grey eyes before they've softened. Licks of fire calming until they've vanished entirely, and he's dropped his wrist. _So it's true, and Ace has eaten a Devil's Fruit._

“What do you want?!” The Logia's pulling at the base of his neck. Unable to keep still as he shifts his feet about in the dry dirt.

He sees Ace. His brother's right hand that strays to the tattoo on his left shoulder, the uncomfortable tip of an orange brim that falls right down and over his eyes. Biting his lip until it bleeds, and there's a flutter of yellow fire. “Why'd you run away?”

There's a sneer on the Pirate's lips, turning his back. “I told you-”

“Come on, Ace! You _forgot that I was real_?”

“Is something like that really that _hard_ for you to understand?” Ace tips his hat from his head, letting it dangle over his shoulders on its string as he's holding his forehead. “You forgot us.”

That _hurts_. Sabo's throat closing up, and he can taste sour gore on the back of his tongue. “I got hit in the head, and half blown up.” The Revolutionary's volleyed, hands curling in black gloves. Angry and getting angrier, when his brother continues showing his back to him. “It's not like I chose to forget you, _or_ Luffy.”

“But you did.” Ace's shoulders are lifted so high on his back the muscle's nothing left to tighten. Ridges sharp over his tattooed back. Sabo staring at the mark. Whitebeard's mark. “You... you were _alive_ when we....” The whole time. All the months Ace had held Luffy at night in his arms. His little brother soaking his t-shirt with hot tears, crying in his sleep. “It was years, Sabo. Before I could even say your name out loud.”

 

Ace's arms wound around him, clutching his chest as he choked out each word. Still with his back turned, but the other man can still hear every bit of his distress. “I'm sorry.” Sabo's found himself uttering quietly. Words consisting more of self-recrimination than any offer of forgiveness to his long forgotten brother. The Logia shaking his head dark head. Turned on the spot, and finally face to face.

“I _tried_ to forget you.” Clutching the tattoo on his arm. “For the first year. Maybe two... I wanted to, because knowing you and then losing you...” It had been harder to overcome than the knowledge that he was son of a dead Pirate. Grown up an orphan after causing his own mother's death. Shunned and hated for the dirty blood running through his veins. “After I left Luffy, and put out to sea... I started to see you... everywhere. People that looked like you. Walking in the streets, on islands I'd never been before. One time I got blackout drunk and slugged this one bastard, cause I thought the guy he was hammering on was you. None of it was real.”

“This is real, Ace.” Stamping his boot into the solid ground to kick dust up into the air. “This place. You. Me... You're not hallucinating.”

It doesn't make any change the pull of sadness at the corners of the Second Division Commander's face. Ace's lips curling as he's licked them. “You say that... every -single -time...” Fingernails bite into Ace's arm. His own fingernails. Tearing at the inked letters in his flesh until warm blood dribbles down his elbow and onto the ground. Fire licking the wound, red-orange, and bright as its healing. Sabo rendered unable to say a word, as he's leveled with tear filled eyes edged in forlorn _real_ fear. “... and then I... I _always_ wake up!”

 

 

~`~``~~~`~~`~~~``~`~`~~~````~~``~~~``~``~~~`~~`~~~``

 

 

Koala sits quietly, gazing out to sea as Marco finishes grilling all the fish and then storing it away for later. He's methodical, cleaning all the utensils he's used, and set them aside. Lifting up the grill he's patting the fire with his bare hand. She's about to protest that he'll be hurt, when blue fire, like fluttering feathers that glow more brilliantly than the dying red embers appear on the man's skin. Shifting ash until he's satisfied.

“I've never met a Mythical Devil's Fruit user before.” She says as the First Mate puts his back up against the wall of his cottage, picking up a bottle of rice wine he had been drinking from the night before and left there overnight.

“Never, yoi? You ought to meet more people.” Grinning at her as he's swallowed a mouthful of grainy alcohol.

Koala laughs. Easier to do than it had been yesterday, although she is very worried. “What happened to Ace, Marco? To make him go running away like that.” Gold eyes sweep along the line of dense green jungle. The forest climbing steeply upwards along the spine of the island.

The Pirate chuckles to himself, sat in the sand. “Ace has these moods, sometimes.” He says, gradually. Consideration on his tongue. He hasn't known the younger man for very long, even if they are infatuated with each other. The Mythical Zoan rubs at one stubbly cheek, waves crashing against the rocks in low tide. “He'll see something, or hear something, yoi. Sparks that light him up, makes him remember.”

“Remember? What?”

Marco's grinned, taken another mouthful of wine. “I wish I knew.” Blonde tuft tossing about on top of his head, the Pirate's put his back against the warm wall of his cottage. The sun all the way up. A full circle of warm yellow light letting down over the world.

 

Koala eyes the man. This Pirate. Still in great question of exactly how old he is, Marco the Pheonix, Whitebeard's First Mate. Startled when she hears the bubbling of a baby Den-den that the man reaches for.

 

“Oya, is there something I can do for you?” Marco continues to drink, setting the little snail down on his bent knee.

“Yes, actually.” Thatch's answered, like they were both Maitre d's in fancy restaurants. “These Marines seem to be planning on _visiting_.” Koala's observed the ripple of annoyance that's lifted ridges along Marco's neck. “We're on our way to meet them now, actually. Pops wants you, Ace, _and_ those two Revolutionaries to stay outta sight.”

Marco's finished the bottle of rice wine, setting it down in the sand. “ _Stay out of sight_. Got it, yoi.”

 

He's placed the receiver quietly down on the tiny blue-green shell of a pale Den-den. Tucking the delicate creature under shade before he's shoved himself back against the cabin wall. A scowl on his face that pulls high blonde eyebrows together, and slanted blue gaze directed to the deeply dark treeline that comes right up to the pale beach.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!! Reviews are always welcome :)


	5. Shelter

Cords of dense muscle shift like the moving of tectonic plates. Each fissure of massive arms, veined and firm. Fingers balled, creating solid fists that crack the atmosphere. Fractures half visible, that show powerful rupture. It's when the seabed rises and falls, for the Will of this man who's long ago eaten the Gura-Gura no Mi. Tremors, creating waves that crash against one another. Breaking glimmers of spray off high onto the air. Moby's sails spline and full, pulled tight for the ocean's breeze, falter. For the concussion of the seabed, and pressure letting go. The two Marine brigs thrown to one side in churning swirls of angered surf. Their cannon's swiveling towards the approaching Pirate ships.

 

“ _Incoming_!”

 

Splinters fly from a blow that's sent a cannonball across Moby's lee rail. Newgate's stony eyes staring at the broken places on his ship, left behind. The Blue boiling below. Waiting. Loudly, in echo, to be fed. Sounding fathomless beating drums of Battle at Sea. “G _raaah_!” For another cannonball, ruptured against the Pirate Captain's bare forearm. Extended intentionally to catch the strike.

 

The air thickens for smoke, from black and white powder. High whistles of incoming projectiles, iron balls breaking harmlessly against the surf and welcomed under.

 

~`~~~`~~~`~`~``~~~`~~`~~~~``~~~`~~`~~~`~``~~~`~~``

 

“What is this place?”

“Storm shelter, yoi.” Lighting candles with a long match, Marco's face flickers in shadow. Fragments of his worry only visible in his slitted eyes, creases rutting lightly tanned skin. Pulling the Pirate's forehead into a tight rumple. “Once every nine years, yoi, high winds hit this island. Everyone retreats into these cave systems to wait it out. Just as citizens of Water Seven, yoi, make shelter together at their high grounds during Aqua Laguna.”

 

Light from the lit candles can barely touch the high stone roof. Weak flutters only able to hint at the ridged structure. As if the mounded interior had been scratched out by enormous clawed beasts. Nearer at hand, shelves had been carved into the walls. Places to sit, with surfaces to eat and to rest. A number of sealed barrels stacked nearby.

 

“Stay here, yoi.” The Mythical Zoan turned and faced Koala. The Revolutionary chilled all down her spine by a breeze lifted up out of the cave. A breath of cold icy air come right out of the living earth.

“And what if you don't come back?” She'll not wait forever, and people die.

“Wait half a day.” People die all the time.

 

 

Marco gets both his feet on the trail. Pacing steadily downhill from the cave inlet. Red dirt snaking away with an illusion of forever. Considering his options, and who's assuming Ace and Sabo aren't just lost in this jungle? Wandering about, so it'll take great amounts of time to find them.

 

Buckled sandals scrape to a halt in red dust. The First Mate holding his chin with the balmy jungle whispering all around. He could just see Ace hop up and down out of the trees in a swirl of hot orange flames. A flare that says ' _here I am_!' like burning down a house. Of course if Marco were to assume the shape of the pheonix and start flapping up in the air, he would resemble just as obvious a statement. But that hasn't happened yet. No flames or tell-tale smoke. He can hear nothing, also. The dense jungle pressing in close. A person would have to be standing very near to be heard.

 

“... _second in command_...”

 

Blue eyes rise, just as Marco's instincts hop him backward. Melting his physical form in washes of azure. The tips of long pheonix feather just bled out of sight when a group of six uniformed men come into view on the path. Talking at full volume to be heard between them, and so the Pirate hears also. Every word they say.

 

“That's what I heard.” Dark, gruff hands on a long rifle. The man beside him has his weapon slung over one shoulder.

“Some big news, if it's true.”

“The Revolution choosing a goddamn _Heir_ is what it is. Chief of Staff, Sabo.”

“That woman with him is no joke either. _Right guys_?” Marco counts each rifle barrel. Dark blue metal, polished to gleaming shine. The First Mate pacing unheard and unnoticed, just on the other side of the green hedge. “Koala, right? I heard she's part Fishman.”

“You should stop listening to boozes and scabs.”

“She took out a fleet garrison.”

“Yea- s'right!”

“Three hundred, all masters of the Five Arts. They say it was less than a minute...” The Marine's clapped his hands together. Startling birds from jungle bowers above them.

 

Whitebeard's First Division Commander doesn't like the route these Soldiers are walking. The cut trail leading right up to the entrance of the caves. If they decided to go inside they'd have advantage. Even if Koala is a strong as they're rumoring her to be. Arms already dissolving, beginning at the man's elbows. Half feather half indigo flame, and Marco's grinning. Lips tinting to gold as his features elongate. The whites of his eyes darkening. Scoring the ground as he walks, with long deadly claws on the ends of blue toes. The Pirate's come soundlessly out from green cover. Onto the crimson track behind these six Marine Soldiers. Watching them through beady wet orbs. Feathered head cocked to one side, before he's thrown both flaring wings wide. Azure fire rushing the air for the Zoan issuing vocal challenge. A beastial sound, of an eager predator.

The men raise rifles, several shots ripping green leafs, or falling harmlessly. Their actions weak, and meaningless. Steel bullets passing right through the pheonix's ethereal blue body, leaving Marco unharmed. Hollows of the mythical creature's neck pushing sound about, laughing out of his throat, when the soldiers are set upon. Sprays of red life from slashed necks. Gaping rips splaying open red-pink fleshes. The last Marine, the Commander's pinned under one cobalt-scaled foot. “How many more of you, yoi?”

“Y-You! You're Marco the Pheonix?!”

Even without lips, it's as if Whitebeard's First Mate leers. Speaking in a voice that sounded like many voices. All of different tones and songs. “You sound surprised, yoi? Don't you know whose Territory you've invaded?”

“P-pirates don't have Territories! _Aaah_!”

Red drops trickle off the end of the Mytical Zoan's long gold beak. Splatting onto the path. He'd pecked a gaping hole into this Marine's right shoulder. Spearing the joint so that bone is forced from bone with a resounding crack. “How many, yoi?” No need to raise his voice, even as the man screams and clutches his shoulder. There is no rush. The First Division Commander able to keep his prey alive for hours, bleeding out. Before allowing him to die. And he will die.

“I... _ah_!.. I won't talk!”

 _Except they always talk, at the end._ “Yoi?”

 

~~~`~~~``~~`~~~`~~~~~``~~~`~`~`~~~``~~~~`~~``~~~~`~~

 

This quiet. It's like the underworld, screaming in pain. In great anguish leveled by the burning of an internal sun. The Revolutionary rendered speechless. What in the whole of the world can he say? Ace standing there in front of him, eyes held tightly shut. Small flares of red and yellow fire preceded by blood that dribbles wetly down the Logia's hanging left forearm. Pulling his own flesh wide open.

So it's without words, when Sabo's taken the ten or so steps at speed to seize Ace's right hand. Lacing their fingers together while hot flames erased all sign of physical injury. Tear-filled eyes coming open. The storm in Ace reflective only by the sky in Sabo as they simply stare. Not caring that their left palms have also come together, or that they were wound up with arms between them.

 

“You know what Luffy did, the first year you were... gone?” Ace is first, to breach the encircling wolves of silence. “He said we had ta drink with you. So he stole a bottle, and drug me all the way to the peer in broad daylight. The two of us sitting down on the dock, right where your ship went down. He poured three cups...”

 

 

_Shi-shishishi!_

Well dressed Lords and Ladies hurried to get away from the loud little urchin. Filthy! Just like the other one. Who let them inside the city walls? These _rats_! Drinking sake on the street!

 _Oi, Luffy! You dragged me way out here, now hurry up and tell me what we're doing._ Ace is pretty sure they have about four minutes. Tops. Before someone official comes to move them along.

 _Just take a sec!_ Little hands are careful not to spill clear sake as Luffy's handed Ace his shallow cup, placed one on the dock between them, the third he holds up. Giggling, with a great big smile on his face. Teeth flashing back sunlight on that cloudless day. _Miss you, Sabo!_

 

 

“He drank... I drank... and we tipped that third glass into the bay.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Blue eyes glare, the grip they have on each other tightening. Sabo's fingers already almost numb. “Reminding me of what an inconvenience I was, even in my death?”

“I thought about how stupid it was.” Ace's lip curls on one side, a heavy sneer that shows off his teeth. Crushing each other's fingers between them. “I'd almost forgotten what you'd looked like. The way you'd laugh right in my ear when we fought side by side. So focused on Luffy, because he wasn't as strong as you'd been. But when we spilled that sake, got up and started to run... I wanted to run to you. As impossible as I knew that was, and still... I _wanted_ to.”

 

Ace had run faster than he'd ever run. Grabbing Luffy up off his feet, and flinging his younger brother up onto his back as they'd ducked fast through the backstreets of Goa. Made for the canal, passing out of the city proper. Luffy cheering him on, as Ace footed a path across the Grey Terminal. Sprinted all the way back to their treehouse, before collapsing onto a bedroll to sleep two entire days. Waking up to his little brother's great big brown eyes round with worry a couple of inches from his nose. “It was the very first time I was momentarily convinced... That I was _absolutely sure_ you were still alive, and I had to _find_ you.” Hazed on the boarders of hysterical laughter, Ace's breath of disgust exhaling out of him. “I'd have to convince myself you were dead, because if I couldn't do that... I'd go insane.”

Sabo is caught up in Ace's shiny grey eyes. A fish not even wriggling against the net. Listing, with a look of lesser and lesser confusion. His brother's confession falling at his feet. For every word uttered, Ace's posture improving. Weights falling clear and off his shoulders. “You never told Luffy any of this?”

“Huh?” It pulls a laugh out of the Logia, warm tears falling onto their laced arms. “I'd never do that to him. After all everyone went through to cheer him back up. And what proof did I have, Ne? Of course he'd believed me without any proof at all.”

“Heh' He probably would.”

Moment by moment, and Sabo can still see the half glances Ace makes. To the scar that's over his left eye and cheek. His hair hides the damage done to the ear on that same side. Gnarled fever-pink flesh, he's thankfully lost no hearing because of it. Letting Ace look, the Revolutionary patiently waits, listening to the jungle. Conscious to the shift in his brother's grip that frees them, fingers thrilling with warm needles.

 

 

Ace leads the way back to the beach, confused to find neither Marco or Koala anywhere. Looking towards the sea out of habit, to find the Moby Dick making fast sail along the close edge of the island. Towards the bay. Did that mean the Marines have made landfall? That they are here on the island with them?

 

Gunshots. In the forest.

 

Sabo's stopped dead, blue eyes on the outlet of the trail as volleys blow out. More than a dozen independent shots, before nothing. Ace at his brother's shoulder, when a second sound rises and falls over the emerald trees. The high shrill of bird-screech that takes all the color out of Ace's face.

“Marco.”

The Revolutionary's almost unable to keep up with the Pirate that ran full tilt ahead of him. Ace choosing paths that run steeply uphill, where he'd heard his Pheonix's voice pitch and vile against stone cliffs that rose up sheer behind. Boots stomping to a stop as ears rung deafening for the rush of blood in him, when the Second Division Commander's found the Mythical Zoan. Up near the end of one of those red trails.

Marco's long pointed beak sticky with blood and chunks of human tissues. Sabo's put an arm up over his mouth, when the Pirate's pulled free a bit of jiggling dark liver all shiny with blood out of the dead Marine. Working it down his elongated gullet like it were a wriggly fish. Two indigo eyes roll to one side, and a series of soft croons escapes from a parted gold beak. First Division Commander Marco standing as a man, for Ace stepping forward into the circle of his arms.

Unable to hear what Ace and Marco are muttering between them, Sabo interests himself with the bodies... or rather, the shredded remains of bodies scattered about. Blood soaking into the red dirt. They had been well armed, and armored. Though not nearly armored enough to stand up against a Mythical Zoan Type... “These soldiers are Cipher Pol.” Lifting one of the dropped weapons, the letters CP3 carved into the base.

“ 's right, yoi.” Marco's kissed his lover's forehead, before nesting his chin in the younger's black hair. “They sent out a King's own Guard, to collect the young Prince of Revolution.”

“Prince?”

Marco's chortled in the back of his throat. “Of course, they could have been full o' shit, yoi. May I ask you something?”

The other blonde blinks stupidly. Nodding his head. “Y-yea?”

“Is Koala of Fishman descent?”

“Huh _?!_ ”

More chortling. Both arms wrapped warm around Ace's back. “Forget it, yoi. But let's hurry up and get inside. This one,” He's indicated the soldier riddled with gaping and bloody holes, “...says there'll be at least three more teams out there.”

 

Sabo's head hurts. Brain misfiring over the odd question just been couched to him. Wondering if he was wrong, and Koala is a Fishman? Then immediately about the previous remark. “What do you mean ' _Prince_ ', Marco?” Following after the older Pirate, who's holding his brother's hand as they're making way towards the rock face at the top of the hill. There are deep inlets, every so often. Stairs dug out, leading back and under shade.

“They seemed to be of the impression that you are Chief of Staff in the Revolutionary Army. Dragon's right hand man, yoi.”

“Shit, Sabo?! Is that true?” Light comes down long channels in the rock, flickering off particles of fine crystal on every surface.

“No, it's not. I'm not... Chief of Staff... It's an undeclared position! Everybody knows that.”

“Looks like it's just been declared, yoi.” Pushing open a door, the three men go inside to find Koala sitting nervously at a hard stone table. Her relief for them all returning clear in gold eyes, when Sabo's taken a long breath and asks her if she'd heard anything about that rumor Marco's just discovered.

“Ah... well. Y-yes.”

Sabo's eyes widen, distorting the scar on his face. “You.. you have?”

“Why are you so red, Sabo?” Giggles the young woman, holding her chin in her hand as both Pirates sit down together across from her. “Dragon's been teaching you the Claw. We all know it. Besides, there's nobody else that can take Chief of Staff besides you. When it came to a vote it was pretty much unanimous.”

“Vote? When was there a _vote_?!”

 

Blatant, in her ignoring of her fellow Revolutionary, Koala's given her attention to Marco. The two Commanders discussing in low tones over the map the older had laid on the table.

“Pops' orders are to _stay outta sight_.” The First Mate tracks a path through the hill with one finger, a way that would take them around the back of the island towards old catacombs. “These are the lease visited corners of the island, yoi. Crumbing ruins of a bygone era.”

Ace follows the progression along the map markings. Dark inked edges of the cliffs ominous, accompanied by italicized words – B _eware the Dawn_ , written in red over the ocean.

“I'll scout a place we can hole-up.” Koala's up on her feet, cap fitted onto her head.

“Alone, yoi?” Marco's resting a hand on Ace's curved hip.

“I'm the least conspicuous.” The young Revolutionary's pointed out. “Just ask Sabo, who's the better at not being seen.”

“ 's it true, yoi?” The Pirate's asked, dipping fingers under the hem of Ace's shorts so that he jerks and glares at the older. Sabo clamping his jaw, until he's let out a begrudging note of assent.

“Yea, it's true,” ground out of his guts to vomit up the words. “Koala's the best spy in the Revolution.”

 

 

Koala takes food and extra clothing with her, as well as consulting with Marco the finer dangers of this particular stretch of rock formation. Agreeing she be allowed six hours, before they would go out looking for her, before she's gone. A route that led down a long dark passage that would eventually come out on a open crop. She'll have to find whatever cover is available on her own after that.

 

Sabo sits across from Ace and Marco, eyes down on his own lap. Suddenly wishing he'd put up some sort of fight to go with her when...

“So what do you want to do for six whole hours, yoi?”

He'd not meant to look. It was reflex. Sabo's neck jerking so he catches Marco's blunt white teeth biting into the groove of his brother's neck and shoulder. Ace letting out a cut off croon that echoes off raw stone walls. The Revolutionary's jolted further, when he's become aware of the older Pirate's feral stare glinting for surrounding candlelight.

“I have an idea,” Marco's eyes keep a firm arrest over the other blonde. Sabo's entire body tingling towards icy numbness. The Mythical Zoan whispering into Ace' ear, before he's nuzzled into his Lover's shaggy black locks. “... well, what do you say, yoi?”

Face burning for the First Division Commander's eyes that spear right through him, Sabo swallows hard to see Ace grin hugely. Pecking the older on his strong jaw. “I think that's a great idea.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Reviews are welcome :)


	6. I Will Remind You

Koala trails the tips of her fingers along the smooth stone wall. A tiny dial lit up, clipped to her belt. Giving away just enough light to make half-shadows at her feet, but nothing more.

 

_Continue along the passage for two thousand steps, yoi. At the end, you should feel a breeze. Turn into it._

 

Sudden. She's taken one more step, and the wall's vanished from her side. She can smell sand, and sea. A rush of air whipping at her short hair, and Koala can hear the gulls huddled in pitted rocks. The rush sweeps away the oppressiveness of that long dark channel, and she's smiled.

 

~`~~~`~~``~~~`~~```~`~~~`~~~`~``~`~~`~~``~~~`~~`~~``~~

 

Sabo's bare back rests on the cool stone tabletop. The same table he'd previously been sitting at about a minute ago, with the two pirates. His brother, and Marco the Pheonix.

 

“Ah, _aha-!_ ” One leg jerking. Ace's taken hold of his brother's knee, holding it back. The Logia touching up and down Sabo's legs. Acknowledging old, pink scars thoughtfully. Grasping his ankles, he's spread Sabo. Creating a frame for view of Marco's slicked fingers that make a slow, gentle entry. The revolutionary's sizable pride lying bloated and purple up against a pale belly.

“You're staring, yoi.” Marco's free arm draped around Ace's hips. He's given the other's young eager prick a wet lick.

“I.. _ahmn_... I _like_ staring at you.”

“Oh-?” Wriggling a second finger into his lover's brother's body, First Division Commander Marco keeps Ace in his eyes. The hand held on his Logia's waist moving deftly. Slippery fingertips that stroke a wet line over sensitive knots of muscle. Burrowing inside with one smooth motion, while at the same instant the older blonde closes his lips over Ace's weeping cockhead. Tickling his tongue against a twitching red glans. Suckling at premature juices, salty and clear, that gather at a youthful pink slit.

 

Sabo's listening to the wet sounds of the older pirate taking Ace down his throat. His brother's wild exclamations, laced with needy requests that are instantly filled by his lover. Marco chortling under his breath. Preparing these two ripe and wanting bodies. Taking Ace down deeply into his throat. Swallowing around him.

“Ahaaa- y-yes... M-Marco-” Unable to remain standing, the Logia's bent himself forward. Changing the angle of the other pirate's touch inside Sabo, making his brother's gasp. Keening into the darkness of the cave. Smoothed rock walls echoing the revolutionary's erotic voice.

“Mhaha- Careful, yoi.” Marco's bent the tips of his fingers inside Ace. Prodding experimentally against a ridge of hard tissue just inside.

“Ah- a _hh_!”

He's kissed Ace's trembling hip. Rotating his wrist, and adding a third finger to the two that scissored. Gradually stretching Sabo open, wider and wider with each pass. The revolutionary's back arching up on the stone table. His arms up. Hiding his face. “Yoi-” With a tilt of his head, he's communicated to Ace, that he's neglecting his role.

 

“Oi,” With his lover's assistance, Ace climbs up on top of his brother. He and Sabo chest-to-chest. “Don't hide anymore, Sabo. Look at me.” The dark haired Logia pushing his long lost brother's wrists back. Fast against the cold hard surface beneath them. Joining storm grey eyes with clear blue skies.

“A-Ace-” Moaned out of both lungs, Sabo struggles to focus. The Mythical Zoan's hands moving to caress his and Ace's long lengths. Coating them them with wet warm lube.

“Does it feel good?” Ace's let out a low keen, for Marco gently laving his aching sack. Ace gathers his brother's parted lips. Tongue tasting the hot cave of the other's mouth. “Does it?” Trailing small nips and light kisses down a pale chin. Ace flutters licks over sensitive layers of pink scar tissue marring one shoulder.

“It - _nhaa_ – i-it... feels good-” The older man's fingers that reach in deep. That massage back the corded ridges that hold Sabo's body together from the inside. Stroking the trunk of his and Ace's shafts with the other hand. Filled with Ace's scent, and thrilled by the bites as he's moved to give attention to his heaving chest.

 

Marco kisses Ace's lower back. Warm at the base of his spine. “I think you're ready, yoi.” Nibbling at soft tanned skin. “Do it slow... I'll watch you.”

Sabo's curious, intent on Ace's flushed freckled face. Red all the way to the tips of his ears, pushing himself up on his elbows. “What are you-?” Sabo is ignored, Ace aligning himself.

“Lean back against me, yoi. That's it.”

The blue eyed revolutionary's unable to look away. His brother reclined back on him, held in the older's arms. Marco's teeth biting hard into get little stripes of fire to flicker over his lover's shoulder. The Mythical Zoan's slanted sky-colored eyes coming up to meet Sabo's. Reaching for Ace's pale-white thighs. Spreading them, while Ace holds his brother's thick rod in hand. Lowering down on top of Sabo, for his thickness to be enveloped by hot pulsating tightness. “H _aah-_ ”

“Keep your knees bent, yoi. And lean just a little forward.” Ace follows Marco's instruction. Rewarded for doing so, with soft pets down his sides. The man's palms encouraging his lover to move gradually. Sliding Sabo's length in and out of him. The head of his brother's penis making constant contact against his prostate so that he's seeing stars at the corners of his vision.

“Aa _ah... aah-_ ”

“That's right, yoi. Steady. Keep going just like that.” Thumbs holding his lover's pert ass cheeks open. So that the Mythical Zoan can watch the slippy wet junction. Cupping Sabo's swollen testicles as he's being taken deeply into his brother's heat. Hearing him moan. Grinning, Marco reaches for more oil. This time coating himself, before laving Ace's back with kisses. Leaning into Sabo's body. Sinking in until he's resting hips against the back of the other's quaking thighs.

“Aah.. a- _ah_!”

 

Quiet, and gutteral. Marco's quick breaths between his teeth. Arms wrapped around his Logia to tease his chest. Fingering hard nipples as wet slaps increasing in speed and intensity. Sabo unable to remain still. He bucks erratically, for his dick being milked by his brother's ass, also for the hard spear that is the older Pirate stirring him. Boiling his blood, as he's reached for Ace's hips. Holding him fast, to thrust up and hard.

 

“ _Ah – y-ye- ah! – aha – oh!_ ”

 

Marco's hands move to Ace's belly. Pulling back gently. Giving Sabo better access to penetrate more deeply. Listening to the young man's pace quickening, the First Division Commander registers the other blonde's muscles twitching. Clamping down around him. “ _Ahh_ , oya~ Ace...” Marco grasps Ace's smooth white buttocks. Massaging, as he's steadily moved up the Logia's tattooed back. “I think Sabo's getting close, yoi.” Ace keens towards the stone ceiling. Shivering, for the older pirate's headed voice. Marco placing palms down on Ace's shoulders. Holding onto him. “Your brother's going to paint you white inside, yoi. Make sure you relax, you'll have to accept it all.”

Ace's panting, for the increased pace and drive of Sabo's hips. Crashing them together, and they're both crying out. “Oh _g- ah_!” The blonde revolutionary's bucking back once, then pistoned forward. Hard jolts following. Heavy streams of thick cum shot up into Ace's warm twitching cavity. “ _Aah!_ ” Head fallen back onto cold hard stone, Sabo's feel himself soften. Sliding free of Ace, while at the same time Marco's length also retreats from inside him.

 

Ace, fallen forward. Taking long steadying lungfuls of air in through his nose. Kissing appreciatively at Sabo's collarbone, when he's felt the other blonde's hands on him. Marco spreading his asscheeks. “Ah~!” Breathed into Sabo's mouth, his brother swallows his voice. Marco sliding in. Perhaps not as well endowed as the last to occupy that space. But he had girth, and technique. “ _Aah naaha!_ ”

“Tuck your knees in close, yoi... That's right. Lie forward.” Rutting gently, Marco wipes sweat from his forehead. Licking his lips. “You're so tight, yoi. Still. So tight.”

 

~`~~~`~~``~~~`~~```~`~~~`~~~`~``~`~~`~~``~~~`~~`~~``~~

 

The Moby Dick docks in the bay. Beating the Marine ships by less than ten minutes. All the rest of the fleet, and all Whitebeard's Commanders have been ordered to shore. To evacuate those closest to the bay. He will not allow these people to be hurt by Marines again. With so recent a wound upon them still healing. The paint barely dry on walls built new. Grass not yet grown over the many graves dug under replanted trees.

 

Marine sails draw nearer. Pirate Captain Edward Newgate stepping up onto the prow of his massive galleon. Facing them. “ _You will go no further_!” Possession of Conquerors' Haki, or from procurement of such a voice by attaining greatness. Whitebeard's voice booms over the ocean. Able to be heard over the many Blue voices muttering along silver swells. Moments pass, but the men of Justice show no sign of taking in sail or altering course. The sun high in the sky.

 

When the ships had come near enough to count every head... A crash against the air itself, Newgate fracturing both sky and sea. Caught the broken off edge, and drug it forward. The sea splitting for the undersea beds coming apart far below.

 

~`~~~`~~``~~~`~~```~`~~~`~~~`~``~`~~`~~``~~~`~~`~~``~~

 

Marco's sitting crossed-legged on the stone bench. Ace rolled up in a blanket, lying beside the older with his dark head in his lap. Sabo's head comes off the table, and he's realized he too is securely wrapped in a thick woolly blanket. Expecting pain, Sabo's lifted his shoulders from the table and sat up, but found only a slight ache in his overall body. No actual pain.

“Did you sleep well, yoi?” Marco's grinning at the revolutionary. Face lit up by a candle near his elbow. He'd been reading by it's light.

Sabo's blue eyes drawn to Ace's freckled cheekbones. “That was some idea.” Blushing. Sabo's rubbed at his neck. Wondering if he should get his clothes back on.

“Mhahah- That? Well. Why pass up a good opportunity when it's dancing around right in front of you, yoi.” Chortling. His movement wakes Ace. The Logia rubbing at puffy eyes.

“ 's the time?”

“Almost time to go, yoi.” Marco stands up. Already dressed, and all his many belts bucked at his hip. “Koala, yoi. She's found the perfect location to meet up with your contact.”

“She's been back?” The blonde clutching at his blanket. “When?”

“Last night. You and Ace were already asleep, yoi. We didn't want to bother you.”

 

Last... night... Then the rondevu.... is....

 

“Wake up, yoi.” The Mythical Zoan pecking kisses to his lover's freckled face. “It's time to go, yoi. Put your pants on.”

“Time to go?”

“You want to see him of, don't you. You're brother, yoi?” Macro is not offended, when the kiss he gives Ace is met by numb lips, and the beginnings of tears. “I'll let you be alone a while, yoi. We must absolutely leave in one hour.”

 

The First Division Commander gets up and goes. In the direction of the outside. Letting a compounded silence sing out in the cave. Between the two brothers. Found unlooked for and never expected, about to be torn away again. Who knew if they'd ever cross paths again. If they would ever see each other. Hear the other's voice. Hold each other...

“I'm not saying Goodbye to you.” Ace's run a hand through black hair. Pulling hard behind his ear. “Sabo. I – I want to see you again. I wanna see Luffy punch you in the face for having made him worry... for... I wanna see Dadan bawl her eyes out, and then shout at us because you being alive means there are that many more mouths to feed.” Wet lines, warm on Ace's freckled cheeks. “I want all that... so …. so I'm not going to say goodbye. I'll _see you later._ ”

The blonde revolutionary kneels beside his brother. Brushing away Ace's tears. “ _I'll see you later_?” Sabo's clarified. A soft press of lips, and they've put their arms around each other.

“Yea... I'll... I'll see you later.”

 

~`~~~`~~``~~~`~~```~`~~~`~~~`~``~`~~`~~``~~~`~~`~~``~~

 

Marco had expected more of a delay, but did not question Ace or Sabo. When the two brother's come out under the sun. Blinking for the mid-morning light that bled through green leaves. Leading them up the trail. Finding Koala gazing down over the face of a steep ridge. Watching for in the distance, a small caravel class ship. Blue sails, and flying a mark well known as commerce and various traders originating from the Red Line. The safe passage the two Revolutionary Soldiers were in need of.

 

 

“Silvers Rayleigh.” The old man detaching himself from a zip line that had been shot up. Secured to the nearest hardy tree. A direct line from the ship some hundred meters below bobbing on choppy afternoon waters.

“Ah, what's this – what this. I've spotted a pretty blue tailed bird.” Grey beard, and there's a scar sliced over the left side of his face. Right through the eye, which is miraculously unaffected.

“You two know one another?” Koala's wary of their surroundings. They'd been out in the open a long time. Cannon fire audible from the harbor up until just a few hours ago. Great rumbling, and when she'd looked out towards the ocean.... what she'd seen... what could _tip_ the world like that? And she never felt a thing. Feet on solid, stable ground. Not a pebble shuttered. It had been eerily calm in both sky and sea every since.

“Us?” Rayleigh's taken a flash out of one pocket. A healthy swig. “We've got some days we could remember. Who do we have here?” He looks very familiar, this freckled boy in orange cargo shorts.

“May I introduce you?” Marco's taken the flash and drunk. “Your cargo. Revolutionaries Sabo and Koala. This one I'll be keeping. Whitebeard's new Second Division Commander, Portgus D Ace.”

“Portgus... D...” Dark eyes seem to mist over. Long wires of grey bristles stuck out from bushy eyebrows. Long curls of silver hair about the man's shoulders. Silvers' wearing a long coat, long sleeves, long trousers... now. But he hadn't back then... He'd put on sash and sword, everyday. Standing tall beside a captain that needed him to, but never demanded it. Roger. Hurling himself through the Grand Line, across the New World to the shores of Raftel. Seeking adventure and competition all the time. Every waking minute of each day. It had broken the First Mate of the Pirate King's heart, when it was all over. Roger, lamenting his success in the bottom of a whiskey bottle, as he thanking him for all their years of freindship. “Ace.” That man he followed. Roger. He loved one woman, in all the years they had been friends and Pirates at sea together. A woman he often spoke about. Portgus D Rouge...

 

Ace shifts, under the stare of the older man he's never met before. “What?”

He'd never imagined he'd meet Roger's son. In many ways he'd vowed never to. Not wishing to endanger an innocent child with the past that still haunted those who had aligned themselves with the King who sailed the Oro Jackson. “Gaha-ha! Finally chosen a Second Division Commander? It's been years, hasn't it?”

 

Gone. Before Ace had time to understand what was happening. Witnessed Sabo and Koala climbing up into harnesses and sped away. His blonde brother's blue eyes the last thing he sees. Looking back up from the ship below.

Marco and Ace returned to the city, finding their entire fleet in the bay. Wrecked Marine hulls overturned, and still smoking. Belching black clouds up into the sky. Coloring the sunset a sweet plum. Locals had taken it upon themselves to apprehend the rest of the soldiers who had been searching the woods for the Revolutionaries. Holding them, until they can be traded off on other ships back into World Government Territories.

 

“Did you see Dragon's little kiddies off all safe and sound~?” Thatch has both elbows propped up behind him on the Moby Dick's white rail.

“Won't believe who've then taken on with.”

“Ah?”

“Silvers.”

“Ah?! That sly old geezer!”

“He's only four years older than you are.”

“Ah haha-ha! But he's so good at being a geezer, man.”

“Who is that guy?” Ace leans his elbows on the side of the ship. Sea air wafting up into his face. A faint hint of the distant smolder of shipwreckage. The treated paint, and Kairōseki bolts the World Government used had a certain smell to them. Mulling over the way Marco had acted. The snark in his voice, and the wag his hips made.

“He's an old rival.” Thatch flexes one arm. “Silvers Reighlay was First Mate aboard the Oro Jackson. The Pirate King's ship.”

Marco is aware. Very aware, of Ace's tattooed back locking tight. “O-oh?”

“We'd be into it every other day with Roger, sometimes. Eh, Marco.” Without waiting for a reply. “He and Pops would go at it. The crew would go at it. Usually First against first, second against second, third against third...”

 

Ace isn't listening to Thatch's unnecessary explanation. Staring at the orange and red glow of fire protected by the inner fold of a cracked hull. Metal support components glowing red, catching fire to surrounding hardwood, and other splintered timbers.

 

“There was this one time, he won against Marco and made him dress up in a blue sequin dress -”

“Oya-oya- That's enough, yoi.”

“- had to sit out on deck for a week and every meal time he had to ask for a cracker. Ha-hahaha!”

 

The image of Marco in a blue sequin dress is.... “I'm gonna go lie down.” Not a trace of a smile on his freckled face. Ace's arms hanging at his sides. The wind pushing at the scraggly locks of his black hair. Turning, and walking away from the First and Fourth Division Commanders.

 

 

“What's with him?” Thatch's asked.

Marco turns his face up at the evening sky. Wind whipping his blonde tuft of hair. “He knew one of those Revolutionaries, yoi. Sent him way back.”

“Yea. Rough. You better go comfort your little hothead.”

“You going to keep out of our way this time?”

 

~`~~~`~~``~~~`~~```~`~~~`~~~`~``~`~~`~~``~~~`~~`~~``~~

 

Making it all the way back to his room without look at and engaging anyone, Ace's slipped into his room. Second down the hall from Whitebeard. Next door to Marco. Looking about the realatively bare space. It's not been his room for more than a couple of weeks.

Crawling onto the bed, and burying his face in the pillow. Trying to hold onto Sabo's face. How he looked, how he felt.... Feeling the increasing distance pulling also, his ability to remember. Soon he'll forget. It'll be like he'd never known at all.

 

“Don't cry, yoi.” Ace had not heard Marco's knuckles on the door. Or the door swing open. The older leaning close over him. Tenderly wiping tears from under his eyes. “You're worried you'll forget, yoi? That you have a brother, and that you love him? Don't worry about things like that, Ace.” The Mythical Zoan's gathered his lover in his arms. Kissing, and biting hard into the tanned flesh under his nose. Drawing out orange flames. “If you're worried you'll forget, I can promise to remind you, yoi. As often as you like.” Turning the young Pirate. Marco's pressed their clothed bodies together.

“W-will you? _Ahh-_ ”

“Yes. I will, yoi.” Marco's vowed. Deftly stripping away Ace's orange cargo shorts, and unbuckled is own. “I'll remind you everyday.” Driving forward, muscular rings folding and flowering open around him. Warm heat, and the sound of his lover. Ace burying his face against the mark on Marco's chest.

“Ah ahhh, oh!”

“I'll remind you every night.” Lacing their fingers together, Marco's hips steadily work. Small, deliberate motions that have Ace's eyes watering. “I won't let you forget anything that happens to you, ever again, yoi.” Pulling nearly free, Marco admires the sight of himself being welcomed back in. Taken from the cold world into the warm confines of another human being.

“M-Marco... w-wait – I -”

“You're coming, aren't you, yoi.” Slowing his pace. He's given a slow, soft kiss to Ace's shoulder. “I told you before, yoi. It's _okay_ , to come as many times as you want.”

“Ah _haa_ – M-Marco.. I-” Tearing completely apart. The small, tender motions of the older man bordering on leaving the Logia unconscious.

“Mhaha- You really like that, yoi? Make sure to breathe. And relax.” Ace's coaxed again. From inside. Becoming aware that Marco hasn't come. “I'll take it out, yoi. Just relax.”

“N-no.” Reaching, Ace's hooked both hands around Marco. Keeping his and the other man's body connected. “I... want you to...”

“Yea? Is that what you want, yoi?”

Nodding his dark head, Ace's moaned for the Mythical Zoan's languid push deep up into him. “...I - _aah-_ I want you to...Marco~” Wanting to feel the other warm seed inside. To know he's the cause of the other's look of relief and indescribably pleasure.

“ _Ahh_ \- Ace, yoi...” Marco's pulled his lover from the bed. Standing upon the gently swaying floors inside the cabin. Arms around his beautiful black haired Logia. Ace's legs hooked around his hips. “Hold onto me, yoi.” With Ace's help, Marco's started a gathering pace. At an angle he can look at his young lover's eyes. Watch his face become more heated, and red. Until he's wrecked, and fighting for breathe. Ace's fingernails dragging lines of blue fire out of the Mythical Zoan's smooth back.

“ _Ahha_ , M-Marco... please... _ahh aaah_ -”

“Please, yoi.” Stroking the edge of their noses together, Marco drags himself slowly along Ace's sensitive insides. Ace's prick caught between their bellies. Slick and twitching.

“Are you there? I am too, yoi.”

“Ahhaa!” Sensation doubling, when Marco's changed the angle of their bodies only slightly. The older man's thighs like corded rebar. Lifting Ace, and directing his thrusts. “M-Marco-”

“H _aaah_!”

 

~`~~~`~~``~~~`~~```~`~~~`~~~`~``~`~~`~~``~~~`~~`~~``~~

 

The stars are bright, tonight. Even with the trail of dusty black lifting up off the surf. _Those Marine powder barrels sure do burn a long time these days_.

 

“Oi. You don't smoke. Who'd you get that off of?”

Marco's skin glimmers for the moonlight. Pale, and beautiful. A gather of cotton pants about his waist, and he's leaning his elbows on Moby's rail. A lit pale roll between his teeth. Taking a long drag. “Izou, yoi. He _still_ owes me.”

“That right?” Thatch sits down next to his nakama. Looking up at the stars. “I'm glad you've finally managed to get into that little firecracker's pants.”

“Are you. Everyone's been trying their very best to get in our way, yoi.” Grumbling. But the Zoan's distaste is muted, now he's been satisfactorily sated. Dragging yellow smoke down into his lungs, before blowing it out.

“Sure I am. You guys are in love, after all. That's why we've all been giving you so much shit.”

“In... love.” Marco's pulled the paper of lit leafs from his teeth. Twinkling bright stars reflected in his eyes. Great big smile pulling the man's lips. “Huh.”

“Oh, man? You didn't _know_ you were in love? Bahahaha!”

 

Thatch will make fun of Marco for several months, overthis. The entire crew planning (behind the two Commanders' backs) what became known as the 'Sweet-Sweet Tying the Knot between First Division Commander Pheonix Marco, and Cutie-Pie Second Division Commander Portgus D Ace'. A day that would go down in infamy.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is finished. I am sorry it took so long to get out this chapter, and I hope it's not awful. Honestly had no idea it'd be the last chapter, but this just seemed a natural place to do it. LUV you guys! Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are welcome!


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